Francesca Santoro develops bioelectronic materials and investigates their interaction with living cells. During her PhD, she began investigating the electrical activity of heart muscle and nerve cells and researching techniques to manufacture micro- and nanoscale 3D structures. Building on this work, during her time at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy), she went on to develop a material capable of electrically stimulating injured skin cells to improve the healing of damaged tissue. The ultra-thin and skin compatible electronic materials have photovoltaic properties and therefore do not require a battery. These wound dressings or plasters can remain on the skin for weeks. The three-dimensional nanostructure improves the interaction between electrodes and cells allows Santoro’s concept to be applied to nerve cells as well.
Santoro’s current research is on optimising interfaces between nervous tissue and electronic microchips to ultimately create biohybrid neuronal cells. This work has led her to successfully produce a so-called biohybrid synapse capable of releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine – a messenger substance which, among other things, plays a vital role in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. In future, such biomaterials could be used for a more successful treatment of neurodegenerative disease. For example, they could be implanted in damaged nervous tissue.
Francesca Santoro (born in 1986) studied biomedical engineering at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II in Naples, Italy. After her Master’s degree, she moved to Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University, Germany and the Forschungszentrum Jülich research centre, where she was awarded a PhD in 2014. From 2014 to 2017, she continued her research work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University, USA. Santoro has led her own research groups since 2017, first at the Centre of Advanced Biomaterials for Healthcare (CABHC) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Naples, Italy. Since the beginning of 2022, she has been based at both the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at RWTH Aachen and the Institute of Biological Information Processing at Forschungszentrum Jülich. She has already been awarded numerous grants and awards for her research. She received an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council and she was the 2021 awardee of the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year in Engineering and Technology. In 2018, she was recognised as one of the winners of the annual Innovators Under 35 Europe awards from MIT Technology Review.
The Commerzbank Foundation’s Leopoldina Early Career Award has been presented at the Leopoldina Annual Assembly every two years since 2010 and acknowledges scientists who have achieved outstanding work in the field honoured by the motto of that year’s Annual Assembly. Scientific works up to 10 years following a PhD are regarded as Early Career achievements. The prize is valued at 30,000 euros, which is donated by the Commerzbank Foundation.
The prize will be awarded during the Leopoldina Annual Assembly on Friday, 23 September 2022 in Halle (Saale). This year, the event is dedicated to the topic of “Global Health: From Health Services to Climate Change and to Social Justice”.