Professor Vasilev is currently a Matthew Flinders Professor and a Professor of Biomedical Nanotechnology in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. He is also the Director of the Biomedical Nanoengineering Laboratory, which he established after joining Flinders University. Prior to taking a position at Flinders University, Professor Vasilev had built and led at The University of South Australia (UniSA) a large and highly productive team, which grew to more than 20 postdocs and PhD students, a size of a small research centre. His team is well connected having deep collaborative networks within Australia and internationally, and is strongly engaged with industry, end users, government agencies and community.
Professor Vasilev has attracted in excess of 25M dollars in research funding from Government competitive grants and Industry, published more than 300 papers and has been awarded several prestigious Research Fellowships from ARC, NHMRC and the Humboldt Foundation, and other awards such as the John A. Brodie Medal for achievements in Chemical Engineering in 2016, the election of a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2017 and a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials in 2022. His contribution to UniSA has been recognised by several awards including the UniSA Research Excellence Award in the Mid-Career category (2018), and the Division of ITEE Excellence Award for Leadership in Research (2018), and the UniSA Interdisciplinary Award (2019) for his work across disciplines.
The foundation of Professor Vasilev’s research program is his revolutionary approach to the nanoengineering of plasma polymer films, which vastly expanded the opportunities for this technology. His established international reputation and leadership in his field evident (in addition to the awards mentioned above) by regular invitations to deliver plenary and keynote lectures at international conferences, and prestigious universities, institutes and companies around the world. His publications have been cited more than 12,500 times and his H-index = 63 (M-index ~ 3).
Professor Vasilev’s research has a strong translational focus. He has a track record of working with commercial partners to industrialise biomedical technologies. These include leading large commercial projects such as a $5M CRC-P project together with Motherson Australia Pty Ltd on a technology for bladder cancer diagnostics, a $6M IMCRC project with Corin Group on antibacterial surface modification for orthopaedic implants, and a $1.3M project with Anizop Holdings on antibacterial surface modification for dental implants. His translational work involving the entire spectrum of activities from research discoveries to commercial products was a key strength allowing him to win in 2020 (commenced in 2022) the prestigious and highly competitive NHMRC Investigator Award ($2,738,000 over 5 year).
Professor Vasilev is deeply involved with various research funding bodies, currently being a member (by invitation) of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Medical Research Advisory Group, NHMRC GRP (Grant Review Panel), a member of the Advisory Committee of the Australia-India Scientific Research Fund and a member of the College of Assessors of the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Science Funding, amongst others. He is also a member of Brandon Capital BioCatalyst Investment Review Committee
Dr Nathalie Mignet is Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. She is the leader of the Laboratory Chemical and Biological Technologies for Health located at Université de Paris Cité, at the faculty of Pharmacy.
After a PhD in France in organic chemistry, Dr Mignet was hired by the company Lynx Therapeutics in San Francisco. She then joined the University of Sheffield in UK for one year before being hired by the French biotech company Capsulis to work on onion-based nanoparticles called spherulites. She joined the CNRS as a research Scientist in 2000 to work on non-viral gene delivery. Since then, she expanded her domain of interest from drug delivery systems to nanomedicine designed for triggered delivery or imaging.
With her lab (#Mignet Lab), she is interested in nanomedicine for delivery or imaging going from fundamental to preclinical studies mostly in cancer.
She is also the founder and the former president of the French Society for Nanomedecine, SFNano.
Recent articles:
Dr. Gerardo F. Goya currently holds the position of Associate Professor at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He earned his PhD degree from the University of La Plata, Argentina. From 2001 to 2007, he served as an Associate Professor at the Institute of Physics, University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), where he established and managed the mechanochemistry laboratory within the Materials Physics Department (DFMT). Upon joining the Institute of Nanoscience of Aragón (INA) at the University of Zaragoza in 2005, he initiated and consolidated a new research direction focusing on nanomagnetism and the biomedical applications of nanoparticles (NPs), particularly magnetic hyperthermia. Notable achievements during this period include the development of novel synthesis methods for magnetic NPs with enhanced control over size and magnetic properties. Additionally, he successfully demonstrated the 'Trojan Horse strategy' for oncologic therapy by inducing cell death with magnetic hyperthermia in dendritic-cell primary cultures. He conducted several studies investigating the interaction between magnetic NPs and various biological agents. In terms of technological advancements, Professor Goya led the design, development, and construction of unique equipment for measuring power absorption in magnetic hyperthermia. This pioneering system, incorporating numerous technological enhancements, was designed to function as a fully automatic measuring platform. The innovative developments of this period served as the foundation for the establishment of a spin-off company from the University of Zaragoza, where he serves as a co-founder and scientific advisor. Through collaborations with prominent parasitologists, immunologists, and medical professionals, the group has successfully established a shared platform in biomedicine, facilitating the coordination of highly innovative multinational projects.
Valentina Cauda is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, co-founder of the Interdepartmetal laboratory PolitoBIOMed Lab and head of the TrojaNanoHorse lab (in brief TNHLab) located at DISAT. See more details at https://areeweb.polito.it/TNHlab/.
Thanks to her ERC Starting Grant project (TrojaNanoHorse, GA 678151), started in March 2016, she now leads a multidisciplinary research group of 18 people, including chemists, biologists, physics, engineers and nanotechnologists. Her main research topic is about theranostic nanomaterials, from wet synthesis, chemical functionalization and physical-chemical characterization of metal oxide nanomaterials covered by lipidic bilayer from both artificial and natural origins, aimed for drug delivery, tumor cell targeting, bio-imaging. Metal oxide nanomaterials, like zinc oxide, mesoporous silica, titania and metal (gold, silver) nanostructures, as well as liposomes and cell-derived extracellular vesicles, are investigated.
Valentina Cauda graduated in Chemical Engineering in 2004 at Politecnico di Torino and then received her Ph.D. in Material Science and Technology in 2008. After a short period at the University of Madrid, she worked as a post-doc at the University of Munich, Germany on nanoparticles for drug delivery and tumor cell targeting. From 2010 to 2015 she worked as Senior Post Doc at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Torino, and then she moved, as Associate Professor, to Politecnico di Torino. For her research results she received in 2010 the prize for young researchers at the Chemistry Department of the University of Munich, in 2013 the Giovedì Scienza award, in 2015 the Zonta Prize for Chemistry, and in 2017 the USERN Prize for Biological Sciences. She has 120 scientific publications and a Hirsch Factor of 37 (updated on April 2021). She holds 6 international patents about the use of metal oxide nanoparticles in nanomedicine.
Prof. Cauda is principal investigator of several industrial, national and international projects raising more than 2 M€ funds in all. The most relevant are a recently granted FET OPEN RIA MIMIC-KeY (GA N. 964386), the ERC Proof-of-Concept XtraUS N. 957563, a Marie-Slodowska Curie Action MINT N. 842964 (where she acts as supervisor of an incoming Post-Doc from abroad), and the ERC Starting Grant Trojananohorse N. 678151
Liviu Movileanu is now a Professor of Physics at Syracuse University, Departments of Physics and Biomedical and Chemical Engineering. His expertise areas include single-molecule and membrane biophysics, chemical and synthetic biology, biosensors, and functional biomaterials. Liviu Movileanu is also affiliated with the BioInspired Institute, Syracuse, New York. Currently, his research group is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Prof. Jesus M de la Fuente (Barakaldo-Spain) finished his PhD work in 2003 working in the evaluation of carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions using gold nanoparticles in the Institute of Chemical Research from CSIC. During his PhD training, he has carried out different stays in the University of Nottingham (UK), University of Kalmar (Sweden), Institute of Physical-Chemistry “Rocasolano”-CSIC (Madrid, Spain) and National Centre of Biotechnology-CSIC (Madrid, Spain). With all this research, he was a pioneer in the emerging field of Glyconanotechnology. Once he obtained his PhD, he moved to the Centre for Cell Engineering University of Glasgow (UK) to develop a research project involving the nanoparticles development and its biological application during two years. In July 2005, he went back to the Institute of Chemical Research (Seville, Spain). His research was oriented to the vectorization of paramagnetic nanoparticles with biologically relevant carbohydrates to label and visualize brain tumors. In June 2007, Dr de la Fuente established the Nanotherapy and Nanodiagnostic Group at the Institute of Nanoscience of Aragon (University of Zaragoza, Spain). Dr. de la Fuente has supervised 14 PhD students (to completion) and he is presently supervising 12 PhD students. Since then, Dr de la Fuente has created a large research group with outstanding scientific results and excellence research projects. As principle investigator, he has received a European Research Council-Starting Grant for “Multifunctional Magnetic Nanoparticles: Towards Smart Drugs Design-NANOPUZZLE” (2010-2015), a European Research Council-Proof of Concept-HOTFLOW (2017-2018) and ERANET project “Multifunctional Gold Nanoparticles for Gene-Therapy-NANOTRUCK” (2009-2012), he is PI of a FP7-NMP “Nanotherapeutics for Antibiotic Resistant Emerging Bacterial Pathogens-NAREB” (2014-2018) and he has supervised 1 IOF and 2 IEF FP7 Marie Curie Fellows and 2 IF HORIZON2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellows. He has actually 6 licensed PCT patents. To date, he has more than 160 papers, cited more than 5,600 times and with an h-factor of 40. He was awarded with the “Shanghai-1000 People Plan” in 2013 to be Chair Professor at Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China). Since 2014, he is a Permanent Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council- Aragon Materials Science Institute (Zaragoza, Spain).
Gerard Tobías-Rossell is Investigador Científico of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC, Spain) at the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB). At ICMAB he leads research on “Nanoengineering of Carbon and Inorganic Materials (NanoCIM)” since 2009; https://www.icmab.es/ssc/nanocim. He holds a degree in Chemistry (2000) and PhD in Materials Science (2004). He has performed research stays at Ames Laboratory (USA) and EMAT (Belgium), and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford (2004-2009). Dr. Tobias has been involved in several research projects both at national and international level with research centres and industries. He was for instance the coordinator of the ITN project RADDEL and is currently the PI of ECIME (AEI), ERC Consolidator Grant (NEST) and ERC Proof-of-Concept (TARLIT).
Loretta L. del Mercato, is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Nanotechnology of Cnr (Nanotec-Cnr) in Lecce, Italy, where she coordinates the 3D Cell Sensing group. She earned her Biotechnology degree in 2004 from the University "Federico II" of Naples (IT) and PhD in "Materials and Innovative Technologies" in 2007 from the Scuola Superiore “ISUFI” of University of Lecce (IT). She was post-doctoral researcher at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, from 2008 to 2010, and then Junior Researcher at the Nanoscience Institute of Cnr in Lecce. In 2015, she became Principal Investigator at the newly funded Nanotechnology Institute of Cnr in Lecce. Her expertise includes nanostructured systems and biomaterials for medical applications, combining optical imaging and computational techniques. She has led several national and international projects, receiving notable grants such as the ERC Starting Grant (2017) and the My First AIRC Grant (2019). She was visiting researcher in Spain (2009), Germany (2013), Netherlands (2015), and Brazil (2023). Since 2018, she has been on the Supervisory Board of the Technopole for Precision Medicine of Apulia (Tecnomed Puglia) and, since December 2022, coordinates the Center of Excellence for Advanced NanoBiomaterials and Technologies (CoE-NBT) in Lecce (IT). Additionally, she is founder and member of the Italian Pancreatic Cancer Community (I-PCC) and the “ERC in Italy” Association and serves as a grant evaluator for several funding agencies and journal reviewer/editor. More info here: http://intercellmed.nanotec.cnr.it.
Vesselin Paunov received his PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1997 from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, where he studied the lateral capillary interactions between colloid particles adsorbed at liquid surfaces. During his PhD studies he did two specializations: (i) in 1995 funded by EU TEMPUS program at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Partas, Greece, and (ii) in 1996 funded the Volkswagen foundation at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Erlangen, Germany. After completing his PhD in 1997, Vesselin was awarded NATO/RS Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Hull, UK, where he worked on projects related to wetting phenomena and colloid interactions. In 1998, he moved to the USA as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Chemical Engineering department of the University of Delaware where he specialized in research on microemulsions. He was appointed as a lecturer in Physical Chemistry at the University of Hull in 2000 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2004, Reader in 2008 and Professor Physical Chemistry and Advanced Materials in 2013. At the end of 2020 he was appointed as a Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Nazarbayev University, Nur-sultan city, Kazakhstan.
Prof. Paunov does highly interdisciplinary research in the areas of colloids, nanoscience and biomaterials. He has published over 180 scientific papers in international journals and is a co-inventor of 13 patents. He has given more than 135 invited and conference presentations. He has attracted significant research funding from the UK research councils EPSRC, BBSRC and the industry. His present research interests include colloid science of foams and emulsions, formulation science, nanoparticles, smart surfaces, microencapsulation, stimulus triggered release of actives, directed cell assembly, cyborg cells, whole cell biosensors for testing toxicity and nanotoxicity, using nanoparticles as antimicrobials. Prof Paunov’s publications have received over 10600 citations and his current h-index is 54 (google scholar). During his work at the University of Hull he has supervised 23 PhD students (21 of which already graduated), 9 PDRAs and 41 visiting researchers. Presently, Prof Paunov teaches a number of courses and modules involving elements of his own research. He has been the acting Head of the Physical Chemistry Teaching at the University of Hull for over 12 years. Prof Paunov was a member of the Management Committees of the EU COST action “Colloidal Aspects of Nanoscience for Innovative Processes and Materials” 2011-2015 and the UK Polymer Colloids Forum 2008-2014. He organized and chaired the 14th UKPCF annual meeting at the University of Hull in 2009 and the Biomaterials symposium within the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts in 2012.
Marco Agostini is currently appointed as a Research Scientist and Assistant Professorat the 1st Clinical Surgery, Dep. Surgical Sciences Oncological and Gastroentero logical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
He is Senior Affiliate Member of The Department of Nanomedicine, The Methodist Hospital ResearchInstitute, Houston, TX and Nano Inspired Biomedicine, Istituto di Ricerca Pediatrica (IRP)- Fondazione Città della Speranza, Padova, IT.
His research focuses on the study of genetic and molecularcharacterization of cancer with a concentration on the genetic pathway involved in the progression and outcome of colon cancer as well as drug delivery system modulation. In collaboration with researchers at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, he is developing nanotechnology applications to enhance proteomic profiling for cancer research. His aims are to improve cancer detection by identifying specific cancer biomarkers and the timing of their interrelated functional molecular contributions to cancer progression.
Lucia Baldino is Assistant Professor (RTD-B) of Chemical Plants at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Salerno, Italy. She graduated with honors in Food Engineering in 2011 at the University of Salerno and, then, received her PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2015. Hes research activity is mainly focused on the use of innovative and sustainable processes, assisted by supercritical carbon dioxide, for the production of lipid-based nanocapsules and for the extraction of compounds of industrial interest from different solid matrices. She is also involved in the production of porous 3-D biopolymeric structures. To date, the experimental results have led to the drafting of over 100 works published in international scientific journals, 5 chapters of international books, and 5 patent applications: WO2023094284; WO2019167013; IT201800003239; WO2015079419; VI2013A000285 (grant number 0001422904). She was a visiting researcher at the University of Salamanca (Spain) in 2021 and at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (University of Zaragoza, Spain) in 2024. She is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Materials, Colloidal Materials and Interfaces section (Frontiers); Topical Advisory Panel Member of ChemEngineering, Materials, and Nanomaterials (MDPI); Academic Editor of Advances in Polymer Technology (Hindawi); member of the Editorial Board of Materials, Soft Matter section (MDPI). She is also a member of: EFCE (European Federation of Chemical Engineering), Chemical Engineering as Applied to Medicine section; GRICU (Chemical Engineering Group of the University); COST ACTION CA18125 AERoGELS (Advanced Engineering and Research of aeroGels for Environment and Life Sciences); BIONAM (Interdepartmental Center on Biomaterials); C.U.G.RI. (Inter-University Consortium for the Prevention of Major Risks) University of Salerno - University of Naples “Federico II”; AIDIC (Italian Association of Chemical Engineering); AIChE Women in Chemical Engineering. Over the years, she received awards and recognitions for her research activity, including: ▪ Top-cited scientists 2021; ▪ Polymers Outstanding Reviewer Award 2021 (MDPI); ▪ The article “Elimination of tryptamines from green coffee by supercritical CO2 extraction”, The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2021, 99, 1345-1351, has been selected for the inclusion in a Special Virtual Issue of The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering in honor of the International Women in Engineering Day; ▪ National award for the best PhD thesis in Chemical Engineering, awarded by AIDIC in 2015.
Prof. Anna Laurenzana is an Assistant Professor of General Pathology at the Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences (DSBSC), University of Florence, where she also heads the Nanomedicine Laboratory. She holds National Academic Qualifications as Associate Professor in General and Clinical Pathology, Applied Biology, and Applied Medical Technologies. She has an extensive background in oncology, molecular biology and development of potential drugs capable of reprogramming gene expression in cancer cells. She graduated summa cum laude in Biological Sciences from the University of Florence in 2000 and obtained her PhD in Clinical and Experimental Oncology in 2004. During her PhD, she focused on uncovering molecular mechanisms driving cancer progression, ultimately patenting a novel class of Histone Deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors designed for the treatment of both hematological malignancies and solid tumors[EP2231623B1, US 8,324,202 B2]. Following her doctoral studies, she conducted postdoctoral research at McGill University in Montreal from 2004 to 2007, where she received significant funding from the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) Strategic Training Program for her pioneering work in cancer epigenetics.
In the last decade her research has focused increasingly on tumor angiogenesis and the intricate interactions within the tumor microenvironment. Merging her expertise in molecular biology with advances in nanotechnology, Prof. Laurenzana has spearheaded innovative projects that combine cell-based therapies with plasmonic nanoparticles, culminating in a patent on Cells loaded with gold nanoparticles for use in the diagnosis and/or treatment of melanoma [EP 3452099B1; US 12,064,492 B2]. She serves as the principal investigator for several research projects, including the coordination of a highly interdisciplinary study on the thermoablation of melanoma and mammary carcinoma using injected nanoparticles in combination with radiotherapy, supported by the Tuscany Region’s Health Research Initiative (751.656 Euro). She is also actively engaged in several European research initiatives, including COST Actions such as “Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Magnetic Hyperthermia and Indirect Radiation Therapy (RADIOMAG)” (2014-2018), “Cancer Nanomedicine from Bench to Bedside” (Nano2clinic, 2019-2022), and the European Research Network on Signal Transduction (ERNEST, 2019-2022). She is co-author of 80 papers.