Nicole Guazzelli

Nicole Guazzelli is enrolled in the PhD program in Information Engineering at the Research Centre “E. Piaggio” of the University of Pisa, Italy. She received both the Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2017 and 2020, respectively. During her master thesis, she worked on the development of a method to engineer the viscoelastic properties of hydrogels, used in the study of cell mechanotransduction, supported by computational models to predict the interaction between the different components of the hydrogels. In particular, her works aimed to identify the optimal substrates able to preserve the stemness of mesenchymal stem cells, to provide a method for the development of more physiologically relevant in vitro models. Currently, her main research interests concern studying and modelling the alveolar barrier, focusing on the in vitro reproduction of the architecture and main functions of the alveolar acinus employing 3D printing techniques and smart materials. She is also developing in silico pharmacokinetic models, which simulates the absorption and distributions of nanoparticles and viruses in the lung and other tissues, as a tool to scale the in vivo rates of biological phenomena to the in-vitro environment (IVIV and PBPK models). The in-silico models support the design of the lung in vitro model with a higher translational power, aiming to overcome the use of animals in laboratories.

Contact: nicole.guazzelli@phd.unipi.it