The National Academy of Inventors has announced its new class of members. “The NAI Senior Member Award is our way of recognising and honouring those innovators who are showing great potential in their respective fields,” stated Paul Sanberg, president of the NAI. “Their inventions have had, or aspire to have, a real impact on the well-being of society.”

Among them is Antonio D’Amore, Group Leader in Tissue Engineering at the Ri.MED Foundation and Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, the institution that nominated him in the US circuit, as well as a founding partner of Ri.MED.

“We are developing a technology that eliminates the dependence on current anticoagulant therapies required by mechanical valves and ensures greater durability of a bioprosthesis,” explains D’Amore. “We have already tested the use of temporary support structures, combined with the patient’s own cells, which can degrade and be replaced by tissue produced by the patient. For the mitral valve, we have developed a polymeric tissue that offers all the advantages of engineered valves, but without stents.”

This research has been instrumental in the development of innovative polymer processing technologies, which can also be applied in other contexts, and has rightly led to Dr. D’Amore’s election to the National Academy of Inventors.