Prof. Antonio D’Amore is the group leader and head of the Tissue Engineering program at Ri.MED Foundation; he also serves as Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh and Full Professore in the Departement of Medicina di Precisione in Area Medica, Chirurgica e Critica at University of Palermo. He received his MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Palermo (Italy) in 2004 and continued his studies at the Imperial College of London (United Kingdom) obtaining an MS in Biomedical Engineering in 2007.
In 2011, Prof. D’Amore earned his PhD in Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering from a joint program by the University of Palermo and the University of Pittsburgh. Since 2008, he has been a bioengineering industry consultant in both the U.S. and Italy. He is the author of more than 170 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, international conference abstracts and extended abstracts, patents applications, U.S. and EU-issued patents, and software to model biological systems. The value of this intellectual property has been recognized by several professional societies, translational science, and career awards such as the National Academy of Inventors (senior member), the “Strazzabosco’s” award for young engineers granted under the patronage of the Italian president of the Republic and the Coulter’s Foundation Translational Research award. As PI or Co-I, he obtained numerous research awards, which cumulatively secured funding for more than $10.2 M. Prof. D’Amore is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of “Neoolife” the first RiMED-UPMC startup focusing on tissue engineering heart valve technology.
Prof. D’Amore’s mission as Ri.MED group leader is to establish a successful cardiovascular tissue engineering program. D’Amore’s lab seeks to couple a mechanistic understanding of the relationship between scaffolds micro-structure, mechanics, and endogenous tissue growth with the development of novel biomaterials for tissue engineering strategies.
The focus of his lab research is upon unmet clinical needs in cardiovascular diseases. Recent areas of interest include quantitative histology and biomaterials micro-structure image-based analysis, structural modeling strategies to guide tissue engineering scaffold fabrication, mechanical and topological conditioning for tissue elaboration, development of cardiac restrain devices, vascular grafts and engineered heart valves. Prof. D’Amore’s project funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, RiMED Foundation, The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, and the University of Pittsburgh.
