Engineering the mitral valve:

bioinspired control of structure and function for enhanced in vivo performance

Team

Pietro Terranova

Scientist in Tissue Engineering

Pietro Terranova received his BSc in mechanical engineering in 2018 at the University of Palermo (Italy) and his MSc in mechanical engineering at the University of Palermo (Italy) in 2020. During his MSc, Pietro was granted by the University of Palermo with a scholarship for international collaborations for a period of 6 months. He spent this period in the United States at the University of Pittsburgh (PA) McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine (MIRM) as a visiting student. During this period at the MIRM, he learned the main experimental techniques in the field of Tissue Engineering.
He also spent 6 months at the Polytechnic University of Lublin (Poland). In October 2020, Pietro classified first out of twenty-five candidates for a PhD scholarship granted by RiMED Foundation at the University of Palermo (Italy). He is currently pursuing his PhD at RiMED Foundation at the Tissue Engineering laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Antonio D’Amore. In his free time, Pietro enjoys sailing, swimming, surfing, playing basketball and soccer but also, he loves cooking, and travelling.

 

ietro’s research mainly focuses on bio-processing techniques for cardiac scaffolds. His work aims to fabricate complex 3D biomechanical structures with tuneable mechanics and controlled micro-architecture/substrate topography showing a tailored structure for cardiovascular applications at both the micro and the macro-scale. He is currently studying how to enhance the bio-fabrication processes for complex 3D prostheses such as heart valves, vascular grafts, and cardiac patches by combining the most common electrodeposition techniques, such as electro-spinning and electro-writing, with robotics. The final goal is a more controllable and effective bio-fabrication platform for tissue engineering applications. Pietro is also working on enhancing the current double component deposition mandrel by designing new target geometries and manipulating the electric field distribution in the 3D space to better control the deposition process.
To reduce costs and experimental time, he works with some In-silico models in COMSOL Multiphysics. His technical expertise include: 3D CAD modeling (SOLIDWORKS, PTC CREO, FUSION-360, Autodesk INVENTOR); numerical simulations (ANSYS, COMSOL), coding (MATLAB, Arduino, Python), electronics (sensors, circuits, basic domotics, PCB, ALTIUM Design), robotics (MATLAB, Simulink, SimScape, Python, ROS (beginner), RoboDK), bioprocessing techniques (electro-spinning, electro-writing, TIPS), 3D Printing (DLP, SLA, FDM), polymer synthesis, mechanical testing (uniaxial test, biaxial test, bending test), image analysis and processing (Scanning Electron Microscopy SEM, Optical Microscopy, MATLAB, Python).

 

Engineering the mitral valve:

bioinspired control of structure and function for enhanced in vivo performance