Zurich, Switzerland
Study of the AGEs effect on the mechanical properties of collagen fibrils through molecular models and experimental validation. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body. It confers mechanical properties to many tissues, such as tendon, skin, bone and cartilage. In particular, it is responsable for mechanical stability, strenght and toughness. Due to natural ageing or disease, such as diabetes, the structural function and integrity of tissues that contain collagen can be compromised. The present work aims to mechanically characterize both physiological and aged fibrils, in order to study the difference between them in terms of mechani- cal properties. Specifically, the influence of non enzymatic cross-links, or AGEs (Advanced Glycation End products) on the mechanical properties of single fib- rils is analysed
In vitro analysis of neurons’ electrophysiological activities Characterization of electrophysiological activity of neural networks with different densities, in terms of development and survival to identify an optimal cell density range for long-term analysis of neural networks. I monitored their activity with 11 Micro-Electrode Array (MEA) standard and 3 MEA-6Wells, Multi Channel System Gmbh, computed the registrations with specific softwares to identify neural activities’ parameters with MatLab using a particular algorithm implemented at NearLab (Politecnico di Milano). Cell density considerably affected cultures evolution. Indeed, It could be noticed a linear development in intermediate density cultures (1800 e 2500 cell/mm2) and a less consistent one for 900 cell/mm2 and 3600 cell/mm2 cultures.