5th Conference on IDD – Detailed programme and speakers

María J. Blanco-Prieto, Full Professor – University of Navarra, Spain
María Blanco-Prieto obtained a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Paris-Sud (France). Following that, she underwent post-doctoral training at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. She then joined the University of Navarra, where she currently holds the position of Full Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology.
Maria Blanco focuses her research on the development of nanomedicines for cancer treatment (particularly childhood cancer), as well as tissue regeneration of the heart and brain through tissue engineering. Throughout her career, she has authored over 175 research papers and book chapters, 5 patents, and presented over 230 communications at scientific conferences, often as an invited speaker.
Her contributions to drug delivery research have been recognized with numerous national and international awards. Maria is a member of the National Academy of Pharmacy of France and Galicia, and the Academy of Medicine of France. In 2021, she became a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and in 2022, she was elected as a member of the Academia Europaea. Since January 2023, she has been the President of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS).

Elena Del Favero, Associate Professor – University of Milan, Italy
Elena Del Favero is a soft matter physicist, with a PhD in Biochemistry. She is Professor of Medical and Applied Physics at the University of Milan.
Her experimental research focuses on bio-soft matter and nanomaterials of biological and pharmacological interest. She applies a biophysical approach and in particular: laser light scattering (visible, UV), calorimetry, Neutron, and X-ray techniques to study the structural organization and dynamics of biomimetic colloids on different length-scales, from the mesoscale (hundreds of nm) to the very local scale (tenths of nm). The main research topics of her group are the structural and thermotropic properties of lipid membranes, the structure of stimuli-responsive nanoparticles for gene and drug delivery and controlled release, the self-aggregation and membrane interaction of peptides and proteins, and the structure and biomechanics of polymeric scaffolds for tissue regeneration. She published more than 110 papers in peer-reviewed scientific international journals.

Michael J.Mitchell, Associate Professor – University of Pennsylvania, United States of America
Michael J. Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery Systems Group Leader at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. He received a BE in Biomedical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2009, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Michael King from Cornell University in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering with Prof. Robert Langer at MIT from 2014-2017, prior to pursuing his independent career at University of Pennsylvania in 2018. The Mitchell lab’s research broadly lies at the interface of biomaterials science, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering to fundamentally understand and therapeutically target biological barriers. Specifically, his lab engineers new lipid and polymeric nanoparticle platforms for the delivery of different nucleic acid modalities to target cells and tissues across the body. His lab applies their research findings and the technologies developed to a range of human health applications, including the engineering of CAR T cells for cancer immunotherapy, mRNA vaccines, genome editing, cardiovascular disease, and in utero therapeutics to treat disease before birth.
Michael has received numerous awards as an independent investigator, including the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, the Rising Star Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Career Award at the Scientific Interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. In 2022 Mitchell was named “Emerging Inventor for the Year” by Penn’s for Innovation in recognition for his lipid nanoparticle technologies and received the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials, the T. Nagai Award from the Controlled Release Society, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and was named a 2023 Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering. He is a co-founder of Liberate Bio, a biotechnology company focused on developing non-viral delivery technologies for genetic medicines, and serves on Scientific Advisory Board of numerous biotechnology companies.

Enzeo Terreno, Full Professor – University of Torino, Italy
Enzo Terreno is a full professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry at the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences, University of Torino Italy), leading the Center for Molecular and Preclinical Imaging.
He has expertise in the field of the chemistry and nanotechnology for developing diagnostic and theranostic (imaging drug delivery and release, fluorescence-guided-surgery, photo- and sonodynamic) probes for medical imaging technologies (MRI, NIRF, PET/SPECT, CT, Photoacoustic imaging). He is the Coordinator of the Italian Node “Multi Modal Molecular Imaging” (www.mmmi.unito.it) within the European Research Infrastructure Consortium Eurobioimaging (www.eurobioimaging.eu).
He has actively participated with Coordination and Scientific responsibility in 16 National and European projects. He is co-author of 178 peer-reviewed publications. He has a H-index of 54 with 10502 citations (Scopus). He is also co-author of 9 patents and 7 book chapters.

Assaf Y.Zinger, Associate Professor – Technion, Israël Institure of Technology, Israël
Dr. Zinger was awarded more than 15 international and national excellence awards, among them the Alon Scholarship for Outstanding Young Scientists, the most prestigious scholarship from the Israeli Council for Higher Education; the international Umbrella Award, focusing on Life Science and Engineering; theNorman Seiden Fellowship in Nanotechnology and Optoelectronics, Career Advancement Chair, and the Young Investigator Award, from the International Controlled Release Society focus group. Assaf was also chosen as a member of the Global Young Academy and the Lindau Noble Laureates Meetingand is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Dr. Zinger holds two Adjunct Assistant Professor positions in the Cardiovascular Science and Neurosurgery Departments at Houston Methodist Academic Institute, TX, USA, and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Turin, Italy. Finally, Assaf was awarded the prestigious ERC-starting grant last year for exploring how human breast milk biomimetic nanoparticles might pave the way for a new oral drug delivery system.