Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) RESEARCH FELLOWSIPS

The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is a research institution in Italy that is currently in an advanced startup phase. The fellowships assigned by IIT to the University of Genova are part of the start-up strategy of the Institute and have the specific goal of forming the first generation of IIT’s research fellows.

Following the start of the Research Labs in the IIT’s Headquarters in Genova Morego the PhD program supported by IIT is organized in a Doctoral School on Life and Humanoid Technologies” articulated in 4 courses. Each Course offers research topics proposed by the Research Directors and their senior collaborators. The candidates are asked to prepare a research project of their choice with explicit reference to the Theme proposed. The soundness of the project will be part of the evaluation Process and will be considered preferential for the choice of the individual scientific theme that will be made jointly by the tutor and the candidate.

The Nanosciences Course is related to basic research and to research programs oriented to the comprehension of fundamental phenomena at the nanoscale and to the application of nanotechnologies to life sciences and to the development of new technologies, this is a challenge for the next twenty years. More specifically, nanobiotechologies have a broad field of application that goes from cells-to-chip and chip-tocells technologies to advanced characterization tools and imaging, from intelligent drug delivery to the development of artificial tissues and smart materials. So, the main research activities related to this course can be subdivided into the following main areas:

1. Nanochemistry that aims to advance the exploitation of nanostructures, fabricated by chemical approaches, as building blocks for engineered self assembly architectures across multiple length scales, from the molecular level up to the macroscopic world. The goal is related to the development of new strategies of nanostructure assembly able to create various types of nanoparticle architectures, to discover collective properties stemming from them, and to exploit such properties in a wide range of applications (for instance in energy-related applications and in medicine). The path to these architectures will exploit concepts that are amenable to large scale deposition and parallelization. The advanced fabrication of colloidal inorganic nanocrystals of a variety of materials will be one of the basic targets. These will be then surface-functionalized and assembled into both ordered and
disordered superstructures onto substrates and in association various polymers, for preparing nanostructured films and surfaces, nanocomposites and nanocapsules.

2. Nanofabrication. Research is based on the utilization of advanced techniques of micro and nanomanufacturing to produce Micro Electric Mechanical Systems (MEMS), micro electrodes and scaffolds with dimensions comparable to cells,innovative devices for different applications.

3. Nanophysics research programs are focused to design, realize and utilize advanced methodologies and instrumentations within the framework of optical spectroscopy and microscopy, scanning force microscopy and optical nanoscopy, and are oriented to the study and characterization of nanostructured, biological and hybrid materials at the nanoscale, i.e. having at least one of the here spatial dimensions controllable at the nanometric or subnanometric scale. The focus is on the development of new strategies for the assembly of nano-systems able to realize new nanoparticles and nanostructured environments, to design and realize architectures to characterize materials, both artificial and biological, within a scale ranging from single molecules or particles or nanostructured complexes to the full biological scale, molecules, cells, tissues, organs and human bodies. As well we aim to integrate different design and knowledge levels from a 2D to a 4D (x, y, z, t).

4. Computer Vision research programs are focused on computational vision, Geometrical approach to 4D scene reconstruction, Sensors, Videosurvelliance(including tracking activity and behavioral analysis), Machine learning focused to image analysisand video sequences, Embedded Computer Vision.

The themes of the Doctoral Course on Nanosciences are structured as it follows:
1. Nanochemistry (Liberato Manna)
2. Nanofabrication (Enzo Difabrizio)
3. Nanophysics (Alberto Diaspro)
4. Computer Vision (Vittorio Murino)

Each application must make specific reference to one of the research themes proposed.

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