Luca Pellegrino is a Postgraduate Research Associate in the Applied Physics, Biophysics and Microfluidics Lab led by Professor Roberto Rusconi at Humanitas Research Hospital.

With a background in polymer chemistry, surface modification and soft lithography, he earned a MS in Industrial Chemistry from “”La Sapienza”” University in Rome and in 2020 he earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London on “Bioinspired surface topographies through sequential wrinkling pattern superposition”.

Part of his research is centred on examining the interactions occurring between biological and artificial material surfaces (topography), immune system and microbial colonization. Another part of his research focuses on the study of physical models to describe bacterial attachment on prescribed model patterned surfaces through microfluidics.

The direct applications of his research concern in tackling nosocomial infections carried by microbial colonization of implants subjected to fluid flow, such as urinary catheters and biliary stents to ultimately in develop biofilm removal strategies. Moreover, another application is understanding the interplay between immune response and microbial colonization in prosthetic environments such as periprosthetic joint infections (PJIs) and breast implant-associated Anaplastic large cells linphoma (BIA-ALCL).”