With great satisfaction we share the news that Mattia Serpelloni, research fellow and former doctoral student in Mechanobiology, is the (ex-aequo) recipient of the 2022 award for the best Italian PhD Thesis in Biomechanics from the AIMETA Biomechanics Group. He will receive the award at the next AIMETA national conference in Palermo, 4-9 September 2022.

“The doctoral thesis I developed”, writes Mattia, “entitled The response of endothelial cells to angiogenic stimuli: experiments, modeling and simulations, is the completion of a course of study in the field of mechanobiology, a highly interdisciplinary research field that combines biology, chemistry, physics and mechanics.
For this sake, a professional partnership between two research groups belonging to The Mechanobiology Research Center, UNIBS proved to be essential in addressing such deeply interconnected content.”

“The goal of my work”, states Mattia further, “is the construction of mathematical models capable of interpreting and predicting experimental observations in-vitro. These experiments arise from precise biological models aimed at studying, at the cellular level, the phenomenon of angiogenesis (i.e., the growth and development of new blood vessels from existing ones). We are interested in understanding the mechanisms that regulate and guide the generation of receptor-ligand complexes that typically trigger the angiogenic stimulus in the cells that cover the inner walls of blood vessels. Although the biological and biochemical knowledge of the chemo-diffusive activities of transmembrane proteins modulating the angiogenic stimulus are extensive, a mechanobiological study on the contribution of cellular mechanics to these phenomena has proved extremely interesting.”

“Without going into technical details, I worked on the modeling of the problem in large displacements, using refined tools of thermodynamics and numerical analysis, implementing the model in high performance computing.”, Mattia concludes.

It is a pleasure to recall at this time the contributions of the “Guido Berlucchi Foundation” and “Ferriera Valsabbia”, which made it possible to financially support the thesis work. The first for having financed, through the scholarship called Young Researchers Mobility Program, the experience abroad at the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Vikram Deshpande. The second, for having supported, through donations, the dissemination and scientific dissemination of the research work as well as the post-doctoral path.