Lecturers
Here you can take a closer look at the lecturers involved in summer school's teaching program.
Remember that you can familiarize with both the programs through the dedicated brochure reporting the scheduling of each activity.
Gerardo Perozziello
Brief CV
Gerardo Perozziello is Associate Professor of Applied Physics in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine of the University -Magna Graecia- of Catanzaro (UMG). He got a PhD in micro and nanotechnology in 2006 from the Technical University of Denmark and a master degree in mechanical engineering with biomedical orientation in 2002 from the University of Calabria. His research activities deal with the design and implementation of microbioreactors for cell screening and processing, microfluidic devices for pretreatment of samples, cell sorting, analysis of cells, DNA and proteins, development and integration of "label free" nanosensors in microfluidic devices for analysis of biological samples; study of biomaterials and technologies for the development of 3D scaffolds used to better understand and improve cell growth and cell-cell interactions and in tissue engineering.
Ulrich Krühne
Brief CV
Assoc. Prof. Ulrich Krühne is a trained Chemical Engineer from the Technical University of Berlin (Germany). He continued his academic career by obtaining his PhD degree at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark in the field of control strategies applied to biological phosphorous removal from municipal wastewater. He left subsequently academia in order to join a small startup company (Celtor Biosystems A/S, DK) developing microfluidic biosensors. In this company he became a microfluidic expert in the field of chemical, biochemical and medical applications. After three years, he joined the Danish Technological Institute (DK) where he had the opportunity to intensify his experience in the field of microfluidic applications and rapid prototyping in different functions (Senior Consultant, Teamleader, Program Leader). After 11 years in industry he returned to his Alma mater, the Technical University of Denmark, where he is working as Assoc. Prof. and Head of Studies of the B.Eng education line of Chemical and Bioengineering. His research areas are microfluidics, Computational Fluid Dynamics and the effective design of bioprocesses across scales. His teaching includes Chemical Reaction Engineering, CFD in Chemical Engineering and GMP in Bioprocess Engineering.
Iordania Costantinou
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. Iordania Constantinou. Technische Universität BraunschweigInstitute of Microtechnology 2007 – 2011 Studies in Mechanical Engineering, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus, 2011 – 2013 Masters studies in Materials Science, University of Florida, USA, 2016 PhD in Materials Science, University of Florida, USA, 2016 – 2018 Postdoctoral work in applications of microsystems in cell biology, Heidelberg University, Germany, 2018 Appointed Junior Professor and 2023 Appointed Professor at at Institute of Microtechnology at Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. Main areas of research: microsystem development for applications in the life sciences, microsensors, microfluidics, microflow systems, microphysiological systems for cell and tissue culture.
Jorge Fernández
Brief CV
Jorge Fernández is Professor in the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Granada and PI of the "Environmental, Biochemical and Food Analytical Control" Research Group. He obtained his PhD in 2003 in Granada, and subsequently completed a postdoctoral stay at the Centre for Chemical Sensors of the ETH-Zurich, where he started working with nanomaterials for optical sensors. Currently, his main research interest is the development of smart micro- and nanomaterials using microfluidic systems for application in optical sensors, selective extraction of compounds and specific chromatographic separations for the biotech and food industries.
Donatella Malanga
Brief CV
Donatella Malanga is Associate Professor of General Pathology and member of University Magna Grecia board of directors in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine. Currently her research and teaching activities take place in the field of human pathology, with focus on the Molecular Oncology in solid tumor. Her work also focuses on Next Generation Sequencing applied to Oncology.
Polona Žnidaršič Plazl
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. Polona Žnidaršič Plazl graduated in Chemical Engineering, finished her Master degree in Biochemistry and obtained her PhD at the University of Ljubljana. She holds position as Professor of Biotechnology at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana. With a wealth of research experience both in the USA and the EU, she notably conducted research at Oregon State University through a Fulbright Grant received in 2014. Her major research interests encompass biotransformations, the application of microreactor technology in biotechnology, and microbial enzyme production. She has (co)authored over 70 publications and textbook chapters and has been coordinating or collaborating on several international and national projects. She is an initiator and a Co-Chair of a conference series “Implementation of Microreactor Technology in Biotechnology – IMTB”, and serves as a member of the Main Board and the Scientific Committee of the European Society on Applied Biocatalysis and of the Editorial/Advisory Boards of the several international journals.
Francesco Gentile
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. Francesco Gentile is an associate professor of Bioengineering at University of Catanzaro. He uses mathematical modelling and nanotechnology to engineer solutions to biomedical problems. Aiming to develop nanomaterials for applications in drug delivery, tissue engineering, and theranostics.
Torsten Mayr
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. Torsten Mayr is Associate Professor for Analytical Chemistry at Graz University of Technology. His research interests are in the field of optical chemical sensor technology; application of optical sensors in biotechnology and environmental analysis, and microfluidic systems with integrated sensors. Since 2017 he is CEO of PyroScience AT GmbH, Graz, and since 2020 he is Board Member of the European Organ on Chip Society - EUROoCS and Leader of the EUROoCS Workgroup Teaching and Training.
Nicolas Szita
Brief CV
Prof Dr Nicolas Szita at University College London (UCL), Department of Biochemical Engineering, Bioprocess Microfluidics. Nicolas has pioneered microbioreactors and the system-wide integration of novel analytical methods with microfluidics. In his UCL laboratory, microfluidic devices for a wide range of bioprocessing and biological applications have been realized. A Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich by training, for his doctoral degree at ETH Zurich, he created a microfluidic pipetting device from silicon and glass, with integrated capacitive sensors for the liquid handling of microlitre volumes with nanolitre precision. As a postdoctoral research associate with Prof K Jensen at MIT, he showed for the first time that multiplexed microbioreactors can be designed to provide in situ and real-time kinetic process data which are comparable with bench-scale reactor data. At the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) he established a group in microbioreactors and started his work on cell culture perfusion. He joined UCL in 2007, and has since gone on to develop micro- and mesofluidic technology that is capable of mimicking bioprocessing conditions for enzyme systems, submerged microbial cultures, and cell-based therapies.
Andreas Dietzel
Brief CV
Andreas Dietzel studied physics at the University of Göttingen and received his PhD in 1989 at the Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics. He then from 1990 to 2003 worked for IBM research and development at laboratories of the Microelectronics Division in Böblingen (D), the Research Division in Rüschlikon (CH) and the Storage Systems Division in Mainz (D) where from 1996 to 2003 he was heading a department. In 2003 he joined Robert Bosch Reutlingen (D) as project manager for the "base development of acceleration sensors of the 3rd generation ". In 2004 he joined the University of Technolgy in Eindhoven (NL ) as a full professor for " Micro and Nanoscale Engineering " . In the years 2007 to 2011, he was also program manager for the TNO Holst Centre System-in-Foil open innovation platform. In 2012, he was appointed professor at the University of Technology in Braunschweig (D) and has since been head of the Institute of Microtechnology . His research focuses on the design and fabrication of microsystems and especially of microfluidic systems with applications in the life sciences like lipid nanoparticle production and measurement and organ on chip.
Rainer Krull
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. habil. Rainer Krull. Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Germany. 1977 - 1980 professional training as chemical worker, Asta Werke AG, Bielefeld, 1982 - 1989 Study of chemistry and chemical engineering, Paderborn University, Germany, 1992 PhD at Paderborn University, Germany, 1993 - 1994 Industrial activity in bio- and environmental process engineering, since 1995 Academic director at the Institute of Bioprocess Engineering, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, 2001 - 2012 Managing director of the DFG-Collaborative Research Center 578 From Gene to Product, 2002 habilitation, 2005 appointment to professorship. Main research interests: Bioprocess development, morphology engineering, shear sensitivity of microorganisms, microbioreactor development, electro-biotechnological processes.
Marco Marques
Brief CV
Lecturer (Ass. Prof.) at UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering. Marco's main contributions are to Industrial Biotechnology and focus on Sustainable Bioreaction Engineering principles to synthesise value-added chemicals and pharmaceuticals. He has an established track record in engineering and scale-up/down of fermentation and biocatalytic processes. He obtained his PhD from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, 2010) in Lisbon, Portugal, focusing on the application of steroid bioconversions. During his post-doctoral studies at the Institute of Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Portugal, 2010-2013) he established the use of marine bacteria to produce secondary metabolites before joining the Department of Biochemical Engineering (UCL) in 2013 to develop microscale bioprocessing techniques.
Julian Schmitz
Brief CV
Julian Schmitz is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Bielefeld University. His research focuses on investigation of cellular heterogeneity in the context of biotechnological production processes. He is also a lecturer at Bachelor's Program Molecular Biotechnology in the aforementioned university.
Christopher Heuer
Brief CV
Christopher Heuer is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Technical Biology, Institute of Physics, Augsburg University. He achieved the PhD degree at the Leibniz University Hannover at the Institute of Technical Chemistry.
Igor Plazl
Brief CV
Dr. Igor Plazl graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana in 1978 with a degree in chemical engineering. He received his doctorate in 1993 and was appointed full professor of chemical engineering in 2010. He has published a revised university textbook titled Introduction to Process Modelling (2004). in 1989 he worked at Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany, in 2003/04 for half a year at Oregon State University, USA, as a visiting professor (Fulbright Scholarship), and another half year in 2016/16 at OSU as a sabbatical year. From 2010 to 2014, he was Vice Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana. His main research interests are currently applications of microfluidics, process intensification and model-based design of micro-scale chemical and biochemical reactors. He has given numerous guest and plenary lectures and published several cited articles in journals on microfluidics. He is co-editor of the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Journal, member of the Working Group on Process Intensification and CAPE-WP (EFCE) and the Slovenian Chemical Society.
Patrizio Candeloro
Brief CV
Prof. Dr. Patrizio Candeloro graduated in Physics and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Catanzaro. He is local responsible of BioNEM laboratories aimed to nanotecnology for biomedical applications. Main research lines are: application of micro-Raman spectroscopy to biochemistry; integration of plasmonic nanostructures in microfluidic devices for new concepts in biosensing; optimization of supehydrophobic substrates as concentrating devices for highly diluted solutions. His main technical-scientific skills are nanofabrication, spectroscopic techniques such as Raman and many of its variants (e.g. SERS); data analysis through multivariate techniques such as PCA, CA, ICA; microscopy, optical and electronic; microinjection techniques of cells.
Janina Bahnemann
Brief CV
Dr. Janina Bahnemann is Full Professor and the Department Head of “Technical Biology” at the University of Augsburg since 2022. She studied Life Science at Leibniz University Hannover (2004-2009) and obtained her PhD from Hamburg University of Technology in 2014. In 2015, she joined the California Institute of Technology (USA) as a postdoc. Afterwards, she led an independent Emmy Noether (DFG) research group at Leibniz University Hannover (2017-2022), and held a substitute professorship at Bielefeld University (2021-2022). Her research focuses on cell culture and microsystems technology and the development of biosensors for biomedical and biotechnological applications.
Juan M. Bolivar
Brief CV
Dr. Juan M. Bolivar is chemical engineer and PhD in sciences (Complutense University of Madrid). He has been Doctoral candidate at Institute of Catalysis (2005-2009, ICP-CSIC, Madrid) working on enzyme immobilization-stabilization, postdoc and and university assistant at the Graz University of Technology (Austria), 2010-2019, working on microreactor technology and industrial biotechnology. Currently he is currently Associate Professor at the department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid. Current interest lies in industrial biotechnology, design and characterization of heterogeneous biocatalysts catalysis, and bioprocess engineering in the context of integrated biorefineries and sustainable chemistry.