Dr. Michele Crestani
Dr. Michele Crestani
Staff of Professorship for Applied Mechanobiology
Hello! I am a postdoc in Vogel’s lab since November 2022 and I have been working on brain cancer since many years. I trained as a bioengineer at Politecnico di Milano, with a master’s degree in Biomechanics and Biomaterials, and at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and at the Mechanobiology Institute (MBI) in Singapore. Here I became passionate with mechanobiology: this experience paved my way towards my PhD, which I obtained in November 2022 at the FIRC Institute of molecular oncology (IFOM), Milan Italy. My PhD thesis was entitled “Mechanoproperties, heterogeneity and cell migration in glioblastoma”. Given that brain cancers are diffusive and rapidly colonize the organ, my rationale was to block their migration to increase the likelihood of surgery. So far, I have developed bioengineering models using microfluidics, 3D printing technologies, and biomimetic surfaces to guide cell migration. During my PhD I learned to tackle problems with a biophysics angle and that made me enthusiast about image analysis.
I recently joined the Vogel Lab with the aim to decipher how Extracellular Matrix (ECM) cues dictate cell infiltration in tumor biopsies from glioblastoma patients. In particular, I am investigating how the mechanical state of the tumor microenvironment can drive infiltration of several cell types, and I collaborate with neuropathologists to have clinical insights.
My research tools:
• Immunohistochemistry on brain tumor biopsies from human patients
• State-of-the art microscopy and live cell imaging
• Microfabrication of cell-instructive surfaces
• Image analysis for single cell and tissue characterization
Feel free to contact me for any inquiry, research project, and any type of collaboration. I’m always excited to meet new people and to explain what I’m doing in details.