Istituto Italiano
di Tecnologia (IIT)

Dr Francesco De Angelis is Principal Investigator at IIT where he leads the Plasmon Nanotechnologies Unit (20 members in total: 2 researchers, 15 postdocs, 2 PhD students and 1 technician). His main expertise relies on micro and nano-optical devices for biomedical applications. He was awarded an IDEAS-ERC Consolidator grant (Neuro-Plasmonics, grant agreement 616213) for developing radically new interfaces between electrical/optical devices and neuronal networks. Before ProID, He has been also the coordinator of the PROSEQO project (FET Open, grant agreement 687089) that was devoted to next-generation methods for protein sequencing. He published more than 160 papers in peer-review impacted journals.

Dr. Giuseppina Iachetta has a Ph.D. in Advanced Biology from the University of Naples Federico II. Presently, she works as post-doc in the Plasmon Nanotechnologies lab, working on new technologies for pre-clinical cardiotoxicity screenings. She has expertise on primary, secondary and 3D cultures, fluorescence light sheet microscopy and confocal microscopy, qPCR, western blotting and ELISA assays, spectrofluorimetric assays, cell viability and proliferation assays, histological techniques for morphological tissue analysis. She worked on drug delivery for testing in brain the efficacy of nanocarriers to deliver therapeutic molecules across the blood-brain barrier in vivo and in vitro.

Natalia Masiera graduated in Chemistry from Technical University of Lodz in 2012. In 2019, she obtained her PhD in the Institute of Physical Chemistry of Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw with the dissertation: “Porphycens in photodynamic of cancer cells and photodynamic inactivation of bacteria”. In the years 2016 – 2018, she led the project: “Mechanism of death induced in cancer cells by photodynamic therapy by means of porphycene photosensitizers”, funded by PRELUDIUM grant of Polish National Science Centre. Currently she is a postdoctoral researcher in the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. She works in the group of Plasmon Nanotechnologies over the topic of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy of neuronal cells. In her research, she is trying to keep the interdisciplinary approach, bridging between chemistry, biology and physics.

Silvia Conti received her M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Bologna in 2013, and her PhD in Bioengineering and Robotics with a thesis on "Fully printed Organic Thin Film Transistors for Biosensing Applications" from the University of Genova under the supervision of Professor Annalisa Bonfiglio (2017). She then worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM) in the Integrated Circuit & System (ICAS) group (2017-2018) and at Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione of the University of Pisa in the framework of ERC PEP2D and H2020 WASP projects (2019-2021). In November 2021, she joined the Plasmon Nanotechnologies group at Istituto Italiano di Tencologia in the group of Francesco de Angelis. The main focus of her research activity is related to the development, fabrication, and optimization of an opto-electronic system based on organic materials on flexible substrates for electrophysiological screening and mapping of cellular activity.

Rosalia Moreddu is a Postdoctoral researcher at IIT, working on the development of nano-devices for non-invasive cellular electrophysiology. She previously worked at CERN on particle detection technologies based on microfluidics. She pursued a PhD degree at Imperial College London in the development of curved ocular sensors. She holds a Master’s degree in Nanotechnology and a Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering.

Dr. Marta d'Amora holds a Bachelor's degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology and subsequently completed her doctorate (Ph.D.) in Neurochemistry and Neurobiology at the University of Genoa. Currently, she serves as an external collaborator in the Plasmon Nanotechnologies Unit under the direction of Dr. Francesco De Angelis. Her research primarily concentrates on electrophysiological recordings in zebrafish embryos and larvae, specifically utilizing these model organisms as a platform for neurotoxicity screening and epilepsy research within the framework of the Trascende (TRANslationalStudy of Central Noradrenerenergic system Degeneration in infantile Epilepsy) project

Senior researcher at the Plasmon Nanotechnologies unit led by Dr Francesco De Angelis. His main expertise is on nano-phonics and plasmonic with particular attention on exploiting the near field for measuring, mapping and modifying surfaces at the nanoscale. With his activity in IIT, his experience has then shifted more to the application of nanophotonics to the biological field, especially for high-performance sensing and mapping of biosamples. He also is the inventor co-author of three patents and published more than 60 papers on peer-review impacted journals; H index = 14. Dr Tantussi has been involved in many projects, among them: FET-Open PROSEQO (2016-2019); ERC CoG, Neuro-Plasmonics (PI Francesco De Angelis, 2014-2018), E2-Plas, EC FP7: NanoSci-E+ (2009-2012).

Rustamzhon Melikov is a multidisciplinary researcher with expertise in nano-bio-physics, combining theoretical and experimental approaches. His research spans intracellular recording from neurons, extracellular plasmonic photostimulation of neurons, biomaterials, organic materials, and computational modeling of quantum dots and fluorescent proteins for white light emitting diodes. Recognized with the TUBA GEBIP Ph.D. Prize, a National Physics Olympiad silver medal, and High Honors graduate from Middle East Technical University (METU), he holds dual degrees in Physics and Electrical & Electronics Engineering. During his Ph.D., Melikov  performed optical and electrophysiological setups, designing low-intensity, visible-light photocapacitive platforms for neuronal stimulation using polymers, plasmonic materials, and quantum dots, resulting in publications and conference talks. Skilled in MATLAB and python-based data analysis and experimental design, he has experience in bio- and optoelectronics through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Dr. Tentellino is now a postdoctoral researcher at Morgridge institute for research. His interests lies on the use and integration of Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and electrophysiological techniques for the sensing and monitoring of biological processes, disease characterization and drug screening.
Part of his work focuses on the development of novel Raman-active sensors to facilitate the readout of complex biological mechanisms.

I received my Master degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Genoa. My Masters thesis, entitled “Quantitative volumetric reconstruction of bio-images by confocal microscopy”, was awarded the 2002 GIC-Italian Cytometry Group Prize (annual award for the best graduation thesis in bioengineering)[1,2]. For my PhD, I spent four years at the Academy of Science of Czech Republic (ASCR) and Charles University in Prague, where I developed expertise on live imaging techniques with one-photon and two-photon confocal microscopy. At ASCR, in collaboration with Luca Vannucci, I developed an in vivo experimental protocol to characterize melanoma structures in anesthetized mouse through label-free approaches 3. At Charles University, I performed live imaging in vitro to identify the early steps of polyoma virus entry in cells, and I used single virion video tracking and FRET assay to investigate the role of endocytic trafficking in viral infection [4]. In 2006, I moved to SISSA in Trieste as a research fellow, where I worked on the application of wavefront phase modulation in an optical tweezers setup, to perform force spectroscopy measurements on growth cones of  developing dorsal root ganglia neurons. As part of that work, we proposed an autocatalytic model of actin polymerization, which constitute the principal motor of cellular motility [5,6,7]. Such model predicts a constant velocity of cell protrusion respect to the counteracting force of an obstacle, because a positive feedback increases the actin filament branching, and therefore the number of filaments that pushes the load. As a result, the force per filament and the growth velocity remains unchanged.

Giulia graduated in Physics of Advanced Technology from the University of Turin in 2016 and earned a Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology. Her research focused on integrating plasmonic nanostructures into neuronal and cardiac devices, advancing cellular analysis and stimulation. She later contributed to high-efficiency energy systems and machine learning applications in research.

Since 2022, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT’s Laser Biomedical Research Center, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (BRAINtSERS). Her work applies Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to study cerebral organoids non-invasively. Beyond research, she is active in science policy, peer review, and leadership, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration in biomedical photonics.

After an Engineering Diploma in biomedical engineering and a Ph.D. in bioelectronics, both done in Grenoble, France, he is currently postdoctoral fellow in Plasmon Nanotechnologies group in IIT. His expertise lies in the development and fabrications of biosensors, as well as the use of such biosensors for electrophysiological measurements.