Industrial BioEngineering
Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biology aims at building novel biological ‘circuits', synthetic networks, which can alter cell behavior by performing functions useful to humans in biotechnology and biomedicine. Additionally it can be used to build simplified models of complex biological pathways in order to better understand their working mechanisms. The synthetic biology market has been estimated to reach $40 billion by 2020, with Europe occupying largest share in the global market. Commercial applications based on synthetic biology have just recently entered the commercial market with, with chemicals, pharmaceuticals, energy and agriculture, as the major markets.The lab focuses on computer-controlled microfluidics devices to regulate and observe the dynamics of gene expression across single cells in real-time. A microfluidics device (or chip) consists of a standard microscopy glass-slide to which a polymer (PDMS) is irreversibly bound. The polymer is transparent and elastic, and using lithography techniques makes it possible to print micrometric channels and chambers in the chip, allowing cells to grow and proliferate using only microliters of reagent. This allows cells to be exposed to desired time-varying concentrations of a compound and for their behavior to be followed in real-time. This innovative technology is being developed to test and validate the dynamic behaviour of synthetic circuits. In the lab we are engineering mammalian cells able to induce spatial patterning in cells with potential application to regenerative medicine and also yeast strain to mimic protein aggregation in neurogenerative disorders.
Biological fluids are a "gold mine" of information that can define the physiological state or spot pathologies of individuals. The success of an early and correct diagnosis relies on the effective retrieval of these pieces of information from the fluid. Unfortunately, the concentration of target molecules specific for critical pathologies is usually below the limit of detection of conventional testing apparati. Furthermore, some fluids are available only in small volumes. Along these lines Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) have emerged as leading technologies that hold the promise to dramatically impact on the next generation of diagnostic devices. LOC refers to a set technologies that enable fulfilling operations, normally requiring a whole laboratory, on a miniaturized scale, within a portable or handheld device. LOCs brings in huge advantages in Diagnostics, Cell Biology, Microbiology and Biochemistry since it requires to process very small volumes of the analyte and tiny quantities of chemicals and reactants. In particular LOC devices related to the vitro diagnostic (IVD) market reaches 45.7 billions $ of global sales in 2012, with projection to reach 65 billions $ in 2017. Within the IVD market, molecular diagnostic and Point-of-Care (POC) device categories are the most emerging. Effective implementation of LOC requires the integration of microfluidics, transport phenomena, surface functionalization and multiphase reactions. The activities carried out in the LOC laboratory focus on the technological aspects related to lab-on-chip applications. In more details, specifically developed technologies and process enable the fabrication of particles for beads-based assays in biological fluids within micro-devices; micro and nanofabrication of microfluidic platforms; simulate the processing conditions; development of read-out schemes to obtain specific signatures of living cells or biomarkers.
Projects
- FET-OPEN EU Horizon 2020 2017-2020 "Control Engineering of Biological Systems for Reliable Synthetic Biology Applications" - Diego di Bernardo
- Fondazione Italiana Fibrosi Cistica 2017-2019 "A novel Full Thickness Cystic Fibrosis model on a microfluidic chip to study pathogenic mechanisms and evaluate therapeutic strategies" - Paolo Netti
