Research areas

This line of research focuses on a major challenge for the global nanotechnology sector: the development of safe and functional engineering nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products. The safe design concept is adopted to protect human health and reduce environmental risks. ASCLEPIUS addresses this challenge by researching new models to correctly define the toxicity levels of nanomaterials. We also implement and maintain an electronic infrastructure to encourage dialogue and collaboration between all actors in the nanomaterials supply chain.

Materials, either fluid (e.g., blood) or solid (e.g., bones) are assumed to behave as continuum media so that the constitutive partial differential equations can be written and solved numerically, using either finite element methods (for solid mechanics) or finite volume methods (for fluid mechanics). Our research focuses on studying the behaviour of human organs through simulations and modelling. We have investigated blood flows, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, heart geometry, abdominal wall deformation and prostate deformation.

Given the sensitive nature of the data handled in our research, this WP is dedicated to ensuring that appropriate security and privacy measures are in place. To this end, we study attacker models in multiple scenarios with a variety of sensors, communications, and architectures. We study the use of blockchain technology to securely store distributed evidence and self-healing of software to increase the resilience of systems.

Understanding the aging process and the path to healthy aging is a fundamental line of research. The use of multivariate analysis and artificial intelligence techniques to model aging and chronic diseases is a promising direction. We analyzed how artificial intelligence techniques could be used to study aging and identified the main limitations and opportunities of current solutions. We are using advanced multivariate analysis to identify biomarkers and behavioral traits that may help predict the onset of gestational diabetes. We have also developed applications to improve the quality of life of people with chronic diseases or food allergies.

We study solutions for the integration of new paradigms and techniques of artificial intelligence in the healthcare system. More recent interest revolves around understanding cognition and its link to artificial cognition. In particular, we have studied the concept of cognitive cities as a suitable environment to create the concept of cognitive health as an evolution of mobile and smart health.