Adriele Prina-Mello Assistant Professor

Prof. Adriele Prina-Mello held a MSc in Material Science and Bioengineering from Polytechnic of Turin and has a Postgraduate Degree from Trinity College in Bioengineering with specialization in Nanotechnology applied to Cellular Engineering and Medical Devices. He has been working in the multidisciplinary field of Nanotechnology applied to Medicine (Nanomedicine) since 2003 where he collaboratively worked between the School of Medicine, Engineering and Physics. He was awarded several Large scale European Grant (FP6, FP7, H2020, HE) among which he was awarded, jointly received with late Prof Y. Volkov, the Best European Project for Namdiatream FP7 project. Among others, the contribution to the nanobiomaterials and nanomedicine as core member of the European Nanomedicine Characterisation Laboratory (EUNCL) infrastructure, the Flagship Regulatory project (NanoReg, FP7), the Regulatory Science Framework (REFINE H2020), and lately the Open Innovation Test Bed for Medical Technologies (Safe-N-MedTech). He has been co-PI and work package leader in more than 10 EU projects. Prof. Prina-Mello has been a member of the European Technology Platform for Nanomedicine (ETPN) since 2005, has served as board member and workgroup chairs in toxicology, Characterisation and Education. He has been expert advisor for the EU Materials and Characterisation, Nanomedicine task forces and also served as expert advisor to several European and International funding agencies.

Academically, in 2016 he was appointed Ussher Assistant Professor in Translational Nanomedicine at the Department of Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine. In 2019 he was appointed Associate Director for Research at the School of Medicine where he contributed to the development of the 2020-2026 School of Medicine Research strategy. In late 2021 he became the EIT Health Principal Investigator lead for Trinity College for the EIT Health KIC initiative. He is the director of the Laboratory for Biological Characterisation of Advanced Materials (LBCAM) at the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI) which has graduated more than 25 Master students and more than 10 Postgraduate students.

He is leading breakthrough multidisciplinary research in nanomedicine (i.e., basic, translational and precision approaches), medical technology (i.e., from characterisation to product R&DI), theranostics (i.e., hybrid and/or tunable/triggered approaches). He is also leading advanced research biomedical research where he has collaboratively developed several characterisation models (i.e., nanoparticle and extracellular vesicle, 3D biology, alternative to animal models, and magnetic hyperthermia).
In 2021, within the European H2020 project NoCanTher, all these expertise contributed, jointly with key industrial, biomedical and clinical partners involved, at the translational success of the first magnetic hyperthermia treatment for pancreatic cancer. This is currently under clinical investigation trial at the Val d’Hebron Hospital where pancreatic cancer patients are presently treated.
Prof. Prina-Mello has extensive experience working with clinical research facilities and pharmaceutical and biomedical industry within and outside Ireland. His work with AMBER is centred on the safety assessment and regulatory compliance of medical technology based on nanomaterials and nanomedicine.