Phd in MORPHOGENESIS AND TISSUE ENGINEERING

Educational goals and objectives

MORPHOGENESIS AND TISSUE ENGINEERING

The Ph.D. program in Morphogenesis and Tissue Engineering is part of the School of Doctorate in Biology and Molecular Medicine. The overall aim of the Ph.D. program is to provide cultural, analytical and methodological tools and analytical tools to perform high level-, basic- or traslational- or applied-, research in the biomedical and biotechnological fields. For this purpose, the courses are aimed to teach the students not only notions (rapidly changing and evolving) but also to acquire evaluation criteria to innovatively pinpoint unresolved issues, in specific fields and to design experimental strategies which address these issues. The educational aims of the Ph.D. program are developed through research guidelines regarding the study of the mechanisms regulating cell differentiation, tissue homeostasis, regeneration and the physiopathology of different tissues. In particular, the research interests are distributed in three main curricula: Curriculum in Morphogenetic and Cytological Sciences: Progression and maintenance of the differentiated state, through interaction between muscle cells and factors regulating histogenesis, homeostasis and tissue regeneration; Identification of molecular mechanisms of cell differentiation; Tissue engineering to mimic neo-organogenesis to produce ex vivo living tissue and to study cell–cell interactions, stem cell–matrix interactions and the role of tissue niche on stem cells behavior; Molecular mechanisms of tissue remodeling and homeostasis Stem cells and regenerative medicine Curriculum in Cell Sciences and Technologies: The main areas of training for this curriculum are: Mechanisms controlling cell cycle and death, a primary interest being devoted to the study of molecular regulators of the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways. isolation and characterization of mammalian germline stem cells, prerequisite for their potential use in medical therapy of infertility and of testis germ cell tumors. Tissue homeostasis and malignant transformation: interplay between tissue homeostasis changes induced by inflammatory agents and carcinogenesis or tumor progression in hyperplasic and carcinoma cells and in "in vivo" mouse models of orthotopic- and xenotransplants; cross talk between signal pathways activated by receptors of innate immunity and oncogenes in the onset of transformed phenotype; immunosuppressive mechanisms developed by tumour cells and strategies to restore anti-tumour immunosurveillance. Curriculum in Cell and Tissue Biophysics focus in the following fields: mathematical modeling, multivariate statistics and biophysical chemistry; spectroscopical methods; human biology, molecular genetics and brain metabolism; dynamical simulations and modeling of biosystems at different dimensional scale.