Fabio Marongiu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cagliari. In 2003, he graduated with highest honors with an MS in Biological Sciences from University of Cagliari, and in 2007 he obtained his PhD from the same Institute in Chemotherapy of Viral Infections. In 2007 he was granted a fellowship for a 2-year post-doc at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) in the Department of Pathology under the supervision of Prof. Stephen Strom. The main topic of his research focused on the isolation, culture and characterization of human amnion-derived stem cells and their differentiation into other cell types. Since then he has maintained an active line of research on the regenerative medicine of the liver. His main contributions in the field pertain to the differentiation of amniotic cells into hepatocytes and other liver cell types, and their perspective use for the regeneration of the liver and the correction on inborn liver-based metabolic disease. In the last decade, his research interest has also focused on the role of tissue microenvironment in the development and progression of cancer, with particular regards to aging. These studies unveiled possible mechanistic links between carcinogenesis and tissue regenerations, with a specific focus on cell senescence and cell competition.

He has authored 49 peer reviewed articles in international Journals, 8 book chapters and over 30 contributions in international conferences, 7 of which were awarded for best presentation.

H-index: 21 (Scopus), 22 (Scholar) – Total Citations: 2026 (Scopus), 2984 (Scholar)

Dr. Tomei is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Immunology and Surgery and the director of the Islet Immunoengineering Laboratory at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami. She is applying her unique background in bioengineering and immunology to develop novel immunoengineering platforms to prevent rejection after islet transplantation and to promote antigen-specific tolerance for type-1 diabetes. Dr. Tomei holds a MS in Materials Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) and a PhD in Bioengineering and Biotechnology from EPFL (Switzerland).

Dr. Tomei has received grants from the NIH, Iacocca Family Foundation, JDRF, Johnson & Johnson and Semma Therapeutics. She has presented her research work as invited speaker at the ADA, IPITA, BMES, TERMIS annual meetings. She has been a member of the JDRF beta cell replacement consortium since 2012, of the IPITA educational committee, and has served as grant reviewer for JDRF, CIRM, NIH, DoD. She was awarded the 2015 Marc S. Goodman Prize, the JDRF CDA and the Eliahu I. Jury Early Career Research Award in 2016, the 2018 Alexander Orr Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2019 Johnson A. Edosomwan Researcher of the Year Award, the 2020 Young Innovator in CMBE.