CELL AND TISSUE ENGINEERING LABORATORY
Director: Dr. Matteo Moretti
Silvia Lopa, Ph.D.
Bio
Silvia Lopa is a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Cell and Tissue Engineering Lab and she is currently the Principal Investigator of a 3-year project funded by the Italian Ministry of Health, which focuses on the development of a microfluidic model mimicking the articular joint. She graduated in Industrial Biotechnology in 2009 (University of Milan-Bicocca) and received her PhD in Biotechnology Applied to Medical Sciences (University of Milan) in 2014. During her PhD, she participated to several projects related to musculoskeletal tissue engineering in collaboration with academic and industrial partners, and she joined Prof. van Osch’s group (Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, NL) and Prof. Mallein-Gerin’s group (University of Lyon, Lyon, FR) as a visiting PhD student. In 2012, she was selected as one of the six members worldwide of the Tissue Engineering Young Investigator Council and, in 2016, she was elected as one of the representatives of the Strategic Alliance Committee of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society. Her main research focus is the development of vascularized in vitro models of musculoskeletal tissues for the study of biological processes underlying the pathogenesis of articular diseases, such as osteoarthritis.
Publications
Bersini S, Arrigoni C, Lopa S, Bongio M, Martin I, Moretti M. Engineered miniaturized models of musculoskeletal diseases. Drug Discov Today. 2016 Sep;21(9):1429-1436.
Lovati AB, Lopa S, Recordati C, et al. In Vivo Bone Formation Within Engineered Hydroxyapatite Scaffolds in a Sheep Model. Calcif Tissue Int. 2016 Aug;99(2):209-223.
Bongio M, Lopa S, Gilardi M, Bersini S, Moretti M. A 3D vascularized bone remodeling model combining osteoblasts and osteoclasts in a CaP nanoparticle-enriched matrix. Nanomedicine (Lond). 2016 May;11(9):1073-1091.
Mayer N, Lopa S, Talo G, et al. Interstitial Perfusion Culture with Specific Soluble Factors Inhibits Type I Collagen Production from Human Osteoarthritic Chondrocytes in Clinical-Grade Collagen Sponges. PLoS One. 2016;11(9):e0161479.
Lopa S, Ceriani C, Cecchinato R, Zagra L, Moretti M, Colombini A. Stability of housekeeping genes in human intervertebral disc, endplate and articular cartilage cells in multiple conditions for reliable transcriptional analysis. Eur Cell Mater. 2016 May 27;31:395-406.
Lopa S, Leijs MJ, Moretti M, Lubberts E, van Osch GJ, Bastiaansen-Jenniskens YM. Arthritic and non-arthritic synovial fluids modulate IL10 and IL1RA gene expression in differentially activated primary human monocytes. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2015 Nov;23(11):1853-1857.
Lopa S, Piraino F, Kemp RJ, et al. Fabrication of multi-well chips for spheroid cultures and implantable constructs through rapid prototyping techniques. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2015 Jul;112(7):1457-1471.
Lopa S, Madry H. Bioinspired scaffolds for osteochondral regeneration. Tissue Eng Part A. 2014 Aug;20(15-16):2052-2076.
Lopa S, Colombini A, Stanco D, de Girolamo L, Sansone V, Moretti M. Donor-matched mesenchymal stem cells from knee infrapatellar and subcutaneous adipose tissue of osteoarthritic donors display differential chondrogenic and osteogenic commitment. Eur Cell Mater. 2014 Apr 23;27:298-311.
Lopa S, Mercuri D, Colombini A, et al. Orthopedic bioactive implants: Hydrogel enrichment of macroporous titanium for the delivery of mesenchymal stem cells and strontium. J Biomed Mater Res A. 2013 Dec;101(12):3396-3403.