Can a machine express emotions? How people feel during interaction with robots or machines able to socially act like human beings?
These are the main questionsbehind our research. We work on "Emotional Human Robot Interaction" using human-like robots which embody emotional states, empathy and non-verbal communication.
Our group uses a Life-like android and a pervasive observation platform to study what happens when human and machine establish empathic links.

Human-Relevant Models Group

Our research is centered on the development of physiologically relevant human-based models at the milli, micro and nanoscale for application to disease models, tissue engineering, toxicity testing, and as alternatives to animal experimentation. To achive this goal we use an integrated approach, based on:

Biological tissues have highly complex and functional architectures. In order to construct engineered tissue with a high degree of complexity, cells must be provided with a suitable three dimensional synthetic or biological scaffolds upon which they can adhere and proliferate.

The Biofabrication Group aims at combining advanced fabrication technologies, including 3D printing, for creating scaffolds, in-vitro models, biosensors and actuators using smart and biomaterials. Applications are mainly focused on Tissue Engineering, regenerative medicine and biotechnologies.

The NanoBioscopy Lab, jointly run by the the Research Center E. Piaggio and the Department of Biology, is dedicated to the engineeering of microenvironments for the study of physiological and disease models. Directed by  Prof. Arti Ahluwalia , the lab houses state of the art microscopes for imaging of cells and nanomaterials.