Microscaled devices and advanced technologies for biomedical applications

Advanced technologies are nowadays recognized as powerful tools for improving our understanding of diseases and improving human health. When approaching the design and development of devices for biomedical studies, engineers might use distinct terminology and methodologies compared to life science researchers, but a common ground resides in the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, physics, and mathematics, which also apply to biological phenomena.
We believe that micro- and nano-technology tools exploiting classical engineering principles will solve the limitations of existing classical culture models. In our bodies cells reside in a complex microenvironment, regulating their fate and function. Most of this complexity is lacking in standard laboratory models, leading to readouts poorly predicting the in vivo situation. This is particularly felt in cancer research, as tumors are extremely heterogeneous and can induce changes both at short and long distances. Our devices generate time and space-resolved gradients, support fast dynamic changes and reconstruct complex interactions between cells while performing multifactorial and parallelized experiments.
We expect that our technologies, strengthened by tight collaborations with scientists from all other STEM disciplines, will bridge the gap between in vitro techniques and in vivo biological phenomena, shedding light on previously unexplored scenarios in the field of cancer progression and its metastatic spread.