Arti Ahluwalia's Biography

Arti Ahluwalia, Associate Professor, University of Pisa

Prof. Arti Ahluwalia, is Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pisa and director of the interdisciplinary Research Center E.Piaggio, the first female to be nominated to this prestigious position. She is also head of the In-Vitro Models group and co-director of UNIPI’s NanoBioscopy Lab, a state of the art imaging facility with confocal, multiphoton microscopy, optical coherence and microtomography. Ahluwalia has over 15 years of experience in the design of biomimetic in-vitro models through integration of fluidics, smart materials, cell technology, modelling and sensing. Her team has pioneered the use of milli-scaled fluidics and connected cultures which mimic the interaction between distant organs and the products developed in her group have been licensed to Kirkstall Ltd (the Quasi-Vivo is an invention of UNIPI) and IVTech srl. She has participated in and coordinated FP7 and H2020 research and innovation projects on nanotoxicology, tissue engineering, biomedical knowledge transfer and biomedical device design. Ahluwalia is President of UNIPI’s patent commission and scientific advisor to Kirkstall Ltd. UK, IVTech srl and Tensive srl. She is also a member of the Italian Ministry of Health’s expert group on the implementation of the 3Rs and is a champion of non-animal technology development.