Nationality: Italian

Biography

I was born in Ancona (Italy) in 1994. I got my Bachelors (July 2016) and Masters Degrees (April 2019) in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. My Master’s Thesis, with the title: “Computational and experimental investigation of the mechanical behaviour of a platinum-chromium coronary stent” was developed at LaBS (Laboratory of Biological Structure Mechanics, Politecnico di Milano) within H2020 InSilc project. During this time my interest concerning computational modelling and stents arose. For this reason, I decided to apply for the BioImplant project: “Development of next-generation bioabsorbable polymer stent with increased strength and stiffness properties, employing polymer textile macrostructures and optimised stent design techniques.” I also deemed BioImplant to be an invaluable opportunity for both personal and professional growth. Indeed, it gave me the chance not only to research such an innovative and challenging topic but also to operate in two different environments as university and company. After these three-year experience I hope to be able to undertake a university career that will couple my love for research and my passion for teaching and sharing my knowledge and findings.

My Research

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world: according to the European Cardiovascular Disease Statistic, in 2017 in Europe 3.9 million deaths were caused by CVDs [1]. Stenting is the most common procedure to address this pathologies and different devices have been developed in the last two decades i.e. bare metal stents (BMS), drug-eluting stents (DES) and bioresorbable stents (BRS) [2]. BMS are those that at the moment performs better in terms of guaranteeing vessel sustain and patency. Nevertheless, remaining permanently in the patient, they may induce restenosis, inflammation and not allow the vessel to recover its physiological vasomotion. BRS are thought to overcome these drawbacks: once their function is no more needed they degrade into non-toxic substances for the body [3]. In this setting, very few examples can be found in literature concerning bioresorbable braided stents and no reference is present for what concerns computational models of these devices. From this, the idea of the present work, i.e. to build a computational model of braided bioresorbable stents that would allow to study stent behaviour for complex geometries and scenarios. Once validated, patient-specific cases might be taken into account and stent design optimised accordingly to the stress and strain distribution obtained.

References

[1]   Elizabeth Wilkins, Lauren Wilson, Kremlin Wickramasinghe, Prachi Bhatnagar, Mike Rayner and Nick Townsend. European cardiovascular disease statistics 2017.

[2]   Zhu Y, Yang K, Cheng R, et al. The current status of biodegradable stent to treat benign luminal disease. Materials Today 2017; 20(9): 516–29
[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2017.05.002]

[3]   Piskin E. Biodegradable polymers as biomaterials. Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition 1995; 6(9): 775–95
[https://doi.org/10.1163/156856295X00175]

Host Institution

Industry