The impact of microfluidics in high-throughput drug-screening applications.

Drug discovery is an expensive and lengthy process. Among the different phases, drug discovery and preclinical trials play an important role as only 5-10 of all drugs that begin preclinical tests proceed to clinical trials. Indeed, current high-throughput screening technologies are very expensive, as they are unable to dispense small liquid volumes in an accurate and quick way.

In Vitro Models for the Development of Peripheral Nerve Conduits, Part I: Design of a Fibrin Gel-Based Non-Contact Test.

Current clinical strategies to repair peripheral nerve injuries draw on different approaches depending on the extent of lost tissue. Nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) are considered to be a promising, off-the-shelf alternative to autografts when modest gaps need to be repaired. Unfortunately, to date, the implantation of an NGC prevents the sacrifice of a healthy nerve at the price of suboptimal clinical performance.

Bioprinting of Matrigel Scaffolds for Cancer Research.

Cancer is one of the most life-threatening diseases worldwide. Despite the huge efforts, the failure rate of therapies remains high due to cells heterogeneity, so physiologically relevant models are strictly necessary. Bioprinting is a technology able to form highly complex 3D tissue models and enables the creation of large-scale constructs.

Cross-Linking Optimization for Electrospun Gelatin: Challenge of Preserving Fiber Topography.

Opportunely arranged micro/nano-scaled fibers represent an extremely attractive architecture for tissue engineering, as they offer an intrinsically porous structure, a high available surface, and an ideal microtopography for guiding cell migration. When fibers are made with naturally occurring polymers, matrices that closely mimic the architecture of the native extra-cellular matrix and offer specific chemical cues can be obtained. Along this track, electrospinning of collagen or gelatin is a typical and effective combination to easily prepare fibrous scaffolds with excellent properties in terms of biocompatibility and biomimicry, but an appropriate cross-linking strategy is required.

Investigating the Optimal Baseline Positioning to Maximize Cognitive Experimental Outcome.

In emotional and cognitive research, the baseline is commonly used for standardization purposes in order to have a reference for the identification of the activation. Since no previous studies have investigated which moment of the experiment could be considered optimal for baseline evaluation, we designed an experimental protocol to analyze which time interval could be considered more effective in highlighting differences between the baseline state and the cognitive effort exhibited during tasks (specifically, reaction and working memory tasks). Several indexes were extracted from EEG signals during the visualization of the considered baseline stimuli and the execution of tasks.