Bio-inspired materials and devices aim to mimic nature’s solutions to develop sustainable and innovative technological solutions, crucial for applications such as medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and drug design. The interdisciplinary approach adopted will provide significant expertise for future material scientists.
The course aims to provide an overview of bio-inspired materials and their use in devices for biomedical and environmental applications. The basic principles underlying material design, fabrication and characterization will be given. Laboratory activities will allow students to acquire practical skills in the development of specific biomimetic materials/devices.
Provide the basic concepts of materials and devices inspired by nature; illustrate, through state-of-the-art examples, how such materials are currently applied in the production of different biomedical devices; promote the ability to identify and design the characteristics of a new bio-inspired material and/or device, an essential skill of the materials scientist.
At the end of the course the student will be able to:
- Know the principles and characteristics of many bio-inspired materials;
- Know and understand the functioning of the most common types of state-of-the-art bio-inspired devices already on the market;
- Understand and use the technical language employed to describe the characteristics of a material/device;
- Critically evaluate the applications, performances and advantages/disadvantages of the use of biomaterials/biosensors compared to other materials/analytical techniques;
- Design a new material and/or device by identifying its essential elements/characteristics and by foreseeing the strategies to integrate them;
- Know future trends and promising technologies
-Traditional lectures, with the aid of slides, videos, animations, simulations. To immediately verify that the students have understood the teacher’s explanations, short quizzes will be proposed through clickers such as Wooclap.
- Discussion of research articles suggested by the teachers
- Laboratory activities supervised by the teacher
Biomolecules and biological macromolecules
Molecular self-assembly for bio-inspired material design
Micelles, lipid nanoparticles, hybrid constructs, mesophases
Hierarchically structured biomimetic materials
Biosensors: principles and applications
Nanobiosensors based on nanopores and nanochannels and their fabrication
Slides and other teaching materials will be provided by the teacher. Further materials will be made available on Aulaweb.
Ricevimento: On request
Ricevimento: At the end of every lesson or on e-mail request
Ricevimento: Upon personal request by phone, e-mail or Microsoft Teams. Elena Angeli Dipartimento di Fisica, via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genova floor 7th, room 713 phone: 010 3536309 email: elena.angeli@unige.it
The exam will consist of an oral interview on the topics covered during classes. A detailed list of the covered topics is available on Aulaweb.
The exam will be aimed to evaluate the level achieved by the student with respect to the learning outcomes. In particular, during the interview, the acquired knowledge and the ability to use the technical language will be ascertained. Furthermore, the ability to identify and critically evaluate the basic elements and characteristics (in terms of performance, functionality) of materials and devices proposed by the teachers and/or designed by the student on the basis of laboratory activities will be assessed.
