Design approaches of scaffolds addressing major issues in tissue engineering. Phase separation-based methodologies

Feb06Wed

Design approaches of scaffolds addressing major issues in tissue engineering. Phase separation-based methodologies

Wed, 06/02/2019 - 13:30 to 14:30

Location:

Speaker: 
Professor Vincenzo La Carrubba
Affiliation: 
Università di Palermo (Italy)
Synopsis: 

Phase Separation protocols applied to polymeric solutions (namely Thermally Induced Phase Separation, TIPS and Diffusion Induced Phase Separation, DIPS) represent a family of highly flexible methodologies allowing one to design and fabricate polymeric scaffolds with a vast latitude of morphologies, meeting the most relevant requirements that can make them suitable for various tissue engineering applications: porosity, average pore size and pore size distribution, incorporation of inorganic fillers (such as hydroxyapatite and/or bioglass) and signalling molecules (growth factors, peptides, etc.).
Some of the relevant issues in tissue engineering will be discussed and addressed by illustrating some achievable engineering solutions based on phase-separation scaffold technologies.

Biography: 

Dr. Eng. Prof. V. La Carrubba received a Laurea cum laude in Chemical Engineering from Università di Palermo in 1997 and a PhD from Università di Palermo in 2001. He had a first post-doc grant entirely financed by DSM Research from 2001 to 2003, and a second post-doc grant co-financed by University of Palermo from 2003 to 2005. In 2006 he became Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, in 2011 Associate Professor of Materials Science and Technology and since 2018 he is Associate Professor of Industrial Bioengineering at Università di Palermo.
His research interests are mainly focused on the modelling, design, preparation and characterization of bioabsorbable polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering applications (skin, blood vessels, bone, brochial mucosa) via phase separation and on the experimental analysis and modelling of crystallization kinetics of thermoplastic polymers under processing conditions (around 70 SCOPUS indexed papers, IF=12).
His main teaching activities have touched, along the years, the following topics: Fundamentals of Tissue Engineering, Materials Science and Technology, Transport Phenomena.
He has been involved in several national and international research projects in the fields of tissue engineering and polymer processing.
He has several collaborations with international research institutions including University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Paracelsus University (Germany), Heriot-Watt University of Edinburgh (UK), DSM Research (The Netherlands), University of Pittsburg and University of Texas at Austin (USA).

Institute: