I am Italian and I live in Lecce (South of Italy) where I am currently studying for a PhD in Nanotechnology at Università del Salento. My research activities take place at CNR NANOTEC (http://nanotec.cnr.it/en), the Nanotechnology Institute of National Research Council (CNR), where I am working with the Research Group “Microfluidics for Chemistry and Cell biology” (Head: Valentina Arima). My PhD project concerns the development of an Organ-on-Chip model of Blood-Brain-Barrier finalized to study the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, one of the main topic of TecnoMED project funded from the Apulia Region to build a precision medicine centre (https://www.tecnomedpuglia.it/en/).
From November 2017 to November 2018, I lived in Stockholm where I worked with the local office of the Italian Trade Agency. I took care of providing information, assistance, and counselling to Italian small and medium-sized enterprises wishing to expand into the Nordic countries and operating in Life Sciences and High-Tech.
Previously, I have been the co-founder of Clover Therapeutics, an Italian biotech start-up founded in 2016 thanks to a regional grant. Clover Therapeutics’ main aim was to develop an innovative biomaterial-based drug delivery system. As the R&D team leader, I took care of the prototyping phase of the drug delivery system and of filing an Italian patent application (2017). This patent was then sold to another Italian start-up (Silk Biomaterials) in 2018.
I hold a master’s degree in Pharma-Industrial Biotechnology (Università del Salento, Lecce – 2011). Furthermore, I received postgraduate training in Innovative Entrepreneurship (High Tech District, Lecce – 2015) and in Internationalization of Enterprises (Italian Trade Agency, Lecce / Stockholm – 2018). Thanks to many other courses in Innovation and Technology I have expanded my knowledge, wishing to feed my mind.
