Tel: +(33)(0)388414101
Fax: +(33)(0)388414099
email: mmorandi[at]unistra.fr
Mattia is now postdoc at the Weizmann Institute
Research activities
Mattia Morandi is pursuing his Ph.D at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Strasbourg, France, where he is focusing on the effects of hydrophobic polymers on membrane stability. He obtained his B.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy, with a thesis on the effect of surface charge in the interface interaction between cellular membranes and mineral substrates. He then obtained his M.Sc. in Physics at the University of Ferrara, Italy, with an emphasis on biophysics and medical physics. During his M.Sc, he spent one year abroad as a special research student at Tohoku University, Japan, where he conducted the research for his dissertation, under the joint supervision of Prof. Giorgio Rispoli and Prof. Masayuki Imai. For his master project, he investigated membrane deformations and shape changes occurring in DOPC unilamellar vesicles upon application of a transmembrane ionic asymmetry, using confocal microscopy and surface modelling program to quantify vesicles shape.
Currently, as a part of ITN SNAL (http://itn-snal.net/), Mattia is investigating the effects of short chained polystyrene on the main phase transition of lipid bilayer and phase coexistence using a combination of fluorometric assays, calorimetric techniques and confocal microscopy.
Moreover, Mattia is also involved in a project in collaboration with Prof. Nigel Slater’s group to assess the possibility to deliver trehalose into red blood cells using giant unilamellar vesicles. This collaboration started during his visit at the University of Cambridge in 2015.
Publications