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Biography
After having obtained a PhD in Physics from the University of Trieste discussing a Thesis on the pioneering developments of X-ray phase contrast imaging applied to medicine, I moved to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France) to cover a post-doc at the ID17 Biomedical Beamline; in 2003, I became responsible of that laboratory. On October 2021 I was nominated Professor of Applied Physics-Medical Physics at the University Milano Bicocca (Italy); since March 2022 I have also an annual renewable mission at the Department of Physics of the University of Calabria (Rende, Italy) as an expert for the realization of the STAR infrastructure (Inverse Compton Scattering X-ray source).
My reasearch activities have been equally shared among two fields: the development and application of X-ray imaging and the therapeutical use of X-ray microbeams, by publishing a total of 250 peer reviewed papers.
In imaging, working on the improvement of the experimental tools, on innovative phase retrieval algorithms, on optimizing the sample preparation procedures, and, lately, by applying advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, I boosted the application of X-ray imaging techniques ex-vivo and in-vivo, pushing the spatial and contrast resolution limits and the radiation dose necessary to perform a computed tomography.
I have attracted international collaborators from all Europe and outside, which made grow up and diversify the beamline’s activities, becaming the recognized world reference in biomedical applications of synchrotron radiation.
Together with my collaborators, I guided the development of multiscale computed tomography imaging, moving from the micron to the submicron scale, thus contributing to the understanding of the onset of different pathologies. In 2010, Idefined the concept of “virtual histology” that was later assumed by the entire imaging community.
In microbeam radiation therapy, I have boosted the in-house technical developments, and started an intense in-house research program, also supervising 5 PhD Thesis on different aspects of the technique, including the optimization of the experimental parameters, the pioneering use of X-ray microbeams in the treatment of pharmaco-resistant epilepsy and the study of the cerebral modifications induced by the onset of chronic pain.
In this frame, I chaired the European COST Project SYRA3, which gave a large impulse to the enlargement and strenghten of the community as well as the dissemination of the use of microbeams outside synchrotrons.
Among the long list of appointments to be remarked that, since 2016, I have been nominated fellow of American Association of Medical Physicists and, since 2021, I have been included in the World Top 2% scientists, produced by Stanford University.
I am member of the Board of Associated Editors of the “Medical Physics” journal, of the International Editorial Board of the “Physics in Medicine and Biology” journal, member of the Editorial Board of “Scientific Reports” and “Physica Medica” journals. In 2018 I was assigned the “Outstanding scientist award” from the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society.