Our Team in Polito

Associate Professor at DISAT, co-founder of the PoliTOBIOMed Lab and head of the TrojaNanoHorse lab (in brief TNHLab) located at DISAT. Thanks to her ERC Starting Grant project (TrojaNanoHorse, GA 678151), started in March 2016, she now leads a research group of 18 people. 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. Materials like zinc oxide, mesoporous silica, zeolites, titania and metal (gold, silver) nanostructures, as well as liposomes and cell-derived extracellular vesicles, are investigated. Prof. Cauda is PI of several industrial, national and international projects raising 1.9 M€ funds in all. She has 99 scientific publications and a Hirsch Factor of 34 (updated on May 2020).

Role in the project: She will supervise all processes regarding the preparation of artificial EV-mimics and lipidic bilayers self-assembled on the nanoparticles and the experimental studies on their interactions and their targeting capability and cargo transfer.

She will be the Project Coordinator of the MIMIC-KEY project.

MS degree and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy. She has always worked in the field of exoskeletons for neurorehabilitation, at the Politecnico di Torino until 2010 and in IIT from 2011 to 2015. She is author of several scientific papers and co-author of two patents related exoskeletons for rehabilitation. In the last years, she has focused on funding requests, writing project proposals for H2020 and for regional and national competitions. Since 2016 she has joined the TNH Lab, where she manages administration, finance, social media and laboratory supplies for the research group.

Role in the project: She will be the administrative and financial contact person for the consortium, she will handle data management and will be responsible of periodical reporting to the EC. She will also manage the project’s website and social media.

She has a MS degree in Biomedical engineering, with specialization in Bionanotechniologies and started a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino. She has worked for the TNH lab on the development of mesoporous silica nanoparticles for drug delivery, to specifically address Multiple Myeloma cancer cells through surface functionalization and active targeting strategies.

Role in the project: She will assist in the preparation of artificial EV-mimics and lipidic bilayers self-assembled on the nanoparticles, perform experimental studies their interaction with nanoparticles, perform the decoration of the nanomaterial and lipidic bilayer with functional molecules and targeting ligands.

Giulia Mesiano

Senior Post Doc

After graduating in Medical Biotechnology, she obtained a PhD in Biomedical Science and Human Oncology at Medical Oncology Laboratory in Candiolo Cancer Institute – IRCCS. During PhD she was the winner of a two- year fellowship granted by AIRC for the project “Identification and killing of cancer stem cells in mesenchymal tumors by immunotherapy with CIK cells”. She continued as Postdoc researcher at Experimental cell therapy laboratory, focalizing on integrated immunotherapy of refractory solid tumors (sarcoma, melanoma); Preclinical study to investigate the potential efficacy of T-cells as adoptive immunotherapy and their synergism with conventional drugs (chemo and molecular targeted therapy) and Interferons.

Role in the project: She will use biological characterization techniques, like fluorescence microscopy, flow cytofluorimetry, protein assay quantification, and supervise in-vitro cell cultures for the EV-mimics essay.