Technologies for life support systems

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Excellent

- Cardiovascular system: research in this field is mainly devoted to basic and applied research dealing with the design, development and testing of devices for pulsatile or steady blood circulation, artificial heart, valve prostheses, vascular access cannulae. The interaction of these devices with the biological system and blood is studied as well with specific attention to haemolysis. Experimental protocols for the functional evaluation of both newly developed and commercial devices have been developed according to international standards. - Renal system: research in the renal support field is focused on the study of fluidynamics and mass transfer of fluids and solutes (plasmatic water and solid catabolites) in both the artificial kidney (haemodialyzer) and the patient and on the determination of long term effects on cardiac mechanics due to altered cardiovascular fluidynamics secondary to the presence of the artero-venous fistula. - Respiratory system: research is focused on the design and development of novel blood oxygenators and non conventional neonatal ventilation techniques using liquid perfluorocarbons (Total Liquid Ventilation). Fluidynamics, mass transfer and transport phenomena (oxygen and carbon dioxide) in the artificial support systems, in blood or in the airways are studied as well. The mechanical behaviour of the airways under artificial ventilation is also studied through computational modelling to optimize performance and parameter settings of the designed devices for in-vivo application in animals. - Micro fluidics: prediction of micro-device performance before the actual fabrication is analysed to characterize the fluid dynamics inside electro-osmotic micro-pumps for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) for biological application, to quantify mass transport phenomena (i.e. oxygen, carbon dioxide) inside lab-on-a-chip micro-devices and to evaluate the mechanical stimulation and mass transport inside the microstructure of scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.

Dipartimento di afferenza

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale (DIS)

Docenti afferenti

Full Professors
Roberto Fumero
Maria Laura Costantino
Assistant Professors
Giancarlo Pennati