Visit of Ph.D students in the frame of RADOV and EURO-LABS projects

Two Ph.D. students from the University of Palermo: Federica Gulino and Federica Seidita have just completed their two-week visit to the INCT. The main goal of the visit was to produce new hydrogel formulations for wound healing and polymeric nanoparticles as substrates for therapeutic and diagnostic (theranostic) nanodevices. In the frame of the EURO-LABS project, the INCT enabled access to research infrastructure that plays a key role in the synthesis of both products. Radiation processing with a 10 MeV electron beam accelerator ensures the cross-linking of the synthetic polymer to improve the mechanical performance of the hydrogel films, partial degradation of the polysaccharide with the generation of bioactive oligosaccharides, and sterilization of the final product. The work carried out during the visit to the INCT is also part of the RADOV project, which aims at the development of new hydrogels integrated with bioactive peptides/proteins.