Dr. Simone Bersini

Biography

Simone Bersini studied Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, graduating in 2010. He completed his PhD work at Politecnico di Milano from 2011 to 2014, focusing on the design of microscale and macroscale in vitro models for human breast cancer metastases, with a particular focus on the process of cancer cell extravasation and microcirculation. During his PhD, he spent visiting periods at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the BioSystems Micromechanics Group at the National University of Singapore, where he combined computational modeling with experimental tools to biofabricate microphysiological models of vascular networks. He also visited the Khademhosseini Lab at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences Technology and later moved to Prof. Martin Hetzer’s lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he integrated his bioengineering background with advanced molecular biology techniques to analyze mechanisms of vascular aging in the context of human physiology and disease, including Alzheimer's Disease and Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. In 2020, he joined the Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale and was awarded the title of Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at USI in 2023. He received the ERC Starting Grant in 2023 to study blood vessel aging through a combination of microphysiological systems, omic analyses, and machine learning. His research area has garnered additional funding from the Novartis Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Research Interests

Experience