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Carbon nanotubes: a promise for nerve tissue engineering?

• Susanna Bosi

  Susanna Bosi is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Trieste, in the group of Professor Maurizio Prato. She took her master’s degree and her PhD in the same group and, after 7 years as a senior scientist in the R&D department of a pharmaceutical company based in Trieste, she returned to the University of Trieste. She currently works on the functionalization and characterization of carbon nanotubes for biomedical purposes.

  , Alessandra Fabbro

  Alessandra Fabbro is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Trieste, Italy, as part of the Professor Laura Ballerini team. After working several years on the physiology of sensory neurons, cortical synaptic transmission and spinal networks development using in vitro models, in the past years she has been dedicated to the study of the impact of carbon nanotube-based materials on the physiology of spinal networks. She demonstrated that carbon nanotubes remotely promote spinal network activity in threedimensional spinal tissue after chronic interfacing, thus contributing to encourage the exploitation of carbon nanotubes technology in the development of novel devices aimed at improving the performance of spinal function.

  , Laura Ballerini

  Laura Ballerini is Associate Professor in Physiology at the University of Trieste, Italy. She has been working for several years on the physiology of spinal cord neurons and networks, providing important contributions to the understanding of spinal network physiology, plasticity and development. In the past decade, she has been working on the interactions between living neurons and micro/nano-fabricated substrates based on carbon nanotubes technology, demonstrating their ability to strongly potentiate neuronal networks performance under chronic growth conditions. Laura Ballerini is coordinating the NEURONANO EU project and the neurobiology team in the ERC project CARBONANOBRIDGE, aimed at exploiting the convergence of nanotechnology and neurobiology in view of the development of novel neuroimplantable devices and drug nanovectors to treat neurological traumatic and degenerative lesions.

  und Maurizio Prato

  Maurizio Prato is Full Professor at the University of Trieste, Italy. His research focuses on the functionalization of nanocarbons (fullerenes, nanotubes, onions, nanohorns, graphene) for applications in materials science and medicinal chemistry. His scientifi c contributions have been recognized by national awards including: Federchimica Prize (1995, Association of Italian Industries), the National Prize for Research (2002, Italian Chemical Society), an Honor Mention from the University of Trieste in 2004, the Ciamician Gonzalez Prize, sponsored by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry and the Italian Chemical Society (2008), a nomination for the Descartes Prize for Excellence in Scientifi c Collaboration (2006), European Commission, the Mangini Gold Medal (Italian Chemical Society, 2009) and he was recipient of the ERC Advanced Research Grant (2008), European Research Council. He is involved in the International Advisory Board of Chemical Communications and the Journal of Materials Chemistry, both of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 1994. Since 2003, he is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry.