Plenary lectures
Prof. Athina Samara – Institute of Clinical Dentistry, University of Oslo, Norway
Title: Biocompatibility assessment: current challenges and future considerations
Athina Samara is a stem cell and developmental biologist specializing in cell-biomaterial interactions, with expertise in single-cell multiomics, cell differentiation, biocompatibility assessment, and systems biocompatibility. She has co-developed and published web tools, such as shinyapps, to enhance data accessibility, reproducibility, and interdisciplinary collaboration. In her role as the lead for the testing and demonstration work package of the EU-funded BIOMATDB project, she aimed to advance the landscape of AI-curated biomaterials database for the optimization of biomaterial selection. With a strong interest in redefining biocompatibility in the context of emerging biomaterials and biologics, she employs advanced approaches and strategic collaborations in data sharing and bioinformatics to drive big health data harmonization and innovation.
Prof. Filippo Pierini, Institute of Fundamental Technological Research Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland
Title: "Stimuli-responsive micro- and nanostructured materials for biomedical applications"
Filippo Pierini is a Professor and the head of the Pierini Research Group at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN). He received his M.Sc. in Advanced Chemical Methodologies with the highest grades and honors (110/110 summa cum laude) in 2009 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2013. He obtained his Habilitation in Material Engineering and was appointed Professor at IPPT PAN in 2020. Filippo Pierini is an expert in structure-property relationships in advanced nanofibrous materials, focusing on polymers' mechanical and electrical features and light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. His research interests span a broad area of nanotechnology disciplines, including bioengineering, sensing, energy storage, filtration, and photovoltaics, using natural structures as inspiration. Pierini Research Group's research activities are primarily devoted to developing innovative functional biomaterials using electrospinning. In particular, the team focuses on the fabrication and application of light-activable nanomaterials for drug delivery, tissue engineering, biosensing, and brain-machine interfaces.
Prof. Debora Puglia – Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Perugia, Italy
Title: Furan-based polymers and copolymers: synthesis, applications and EoL options
Dr. Debora Puglia is Associate Professor at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Perugia, where she received her PhD in Industrial Engineering in 2003. Her main current research activities are related to the extraction of lignocellulosic nanostructures from waste (agricultural and food sources) and their use in composite and nanocomposite biobased materials for food packaging, biomedical and plant protection applications.
Keynote lectures
Title: „Wireless magnetic interactions between functional nanomaterials and neurobiology”
Prof. Dr. Danijela Gregurec has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) since late 2020. She holds an MSc in Applied Chemistry from the University of Zagreb, Croatia and a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine, which she earned in 2016 from the CIC biomaGUNE in San Sebastián, Spain. Following her PhD, she moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge), where she worked in the Research Laboratory of Electronics and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. At the FAU, she now leads the multidisciplinary Biointerfaces Lab, integrating materials chemistry, functional magnetic nanomaterials, and neuromodulation technologies. She has received multiple prestigious awards, including the ERC Starting Grant, for her pioneering work on nanomaterial-based wireless technologies to modulate and communicate with neurons in the deep brain.
Prof. Timothy E. L. Douglas, University of Lancaster, School of Engineering, Lancaster, UK
Title: "Whey protein isolate: a versatile biomaterial for tissue engineering and drug delivery"
Timothy E.L. Douglas is Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. He obtained his PhD from Technische Universitaet Dresden, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dieter Scharnweber, he was a postdoc at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, under the supervision of Prof. John Jansen and Prof. Sander Leeuwenburgh and he won his own personal postdoctoral fellowship from Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) to set up his own research line at Ghent University, Belgium in the group of Prof. Andre Skirtach. Since 2017 he has been leading his own research group. He has won grants from the British Council, the British Embassy in Warsaw and the UK Science and Innovation network and to fund international conferences and scientific exchange. He has published over 100 manuscripts in biomaterials with a wide network of international collaborators, including many from Poland. His interests include hydrogels and hydrogel-inorganic composites, application of food industry substances as biomaterials and promotion of multilingualism in science. He is a member of the International Association of Hyperpolyglots (HYPIA) is an international body representing people who are fluent in six or more languages and/or conversant in eight or more languages.