The lifetime of positrons, applied to biomedical engineering.

Rafael Ferragut was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Politecnico di Milano. He received his Master and PhD in Physics (1995 and 1999) from Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Rafael’s current research focuses on applied studies in Materials Science and Antimatter properties. He studies porous materials, thin films (hybrid solar cells, semiconductors, oxides, etc.) and agehardenable alloys. He has been responsible of the Positron Laboratory at the research centre L-NESS in Como since 2010. He collaborates with the antimatter experiment AEgIS that takes place at CERN.

Born in Milan in 1956. Graduated with honours in Nuclear Engineering (Politecnico di Milano), in Physics and in Agriculture (Università Statale di Milano). Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano from 1999.

Scientific investigations concern:

– antimatter physics. Main researches: 1) positronium (Ps) features in ground and excited states; 2) spin relaxation processes of positrons injected in condensed matter. 3) Production of coldantihydrogen at CERN (AEGIS experiment) to perform gravitational experiments on antimatter. 

– materials science. Experimental determination of the free volume in polymers and of the distribution function of nanometric cavities in porous materials.

– Cosmic rays. Detection of cosmic rays with energies higher than 10¹⁷ eV (Auger experiment).

Member of the International Committee for Positron and Positronium Chemistry; member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences; (co)author of more than 220 papers published on international journals; reviewer of more than 470 papers for international journals in the fields of physics, physical chemistry and materials science.

Matteo Vicini obtained his M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering in 2023 at Politecnico di Milano. Here, he now attends an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Bioengineering and Physics, funded and supervised by Prof. Claudio Conci, in collaboration with Prof. Rafael Ferragut’s group at the VEPAS laboratory. His Ph.D. focuses on the intravital inspection of vascular tissue susbtitutes, using time-resolved positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS).

Matías Bayo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his master’s in physics (2022) from Universidad de Buenos Aires. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Physics from Politecnico di Milano. Briefly, his research focuses on Antimatter fundamental properties, and on antimatter spectroscopy on biological samples. These activities are carried out at the Positron Laboratory on L-NESS research centre in Como, Italy. He also collaborates with an antimatter experiment at CERN, Asacusa.

Zhong Guan earned his B.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Engineering from Shandong University in 2021, followed by an M.Phil. in Chinese Medicine Science from the University of Macau in 2024. In 2025, he obtained his M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence for One Health (AI4OH) from Université Grenoble Alpes, France. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. program in Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and supervised by Prof. Claudio Conci. His doctoral research focuses on designing databases and computational codes for image recognition in tumor microenvironments.

Greta Brussolo obtained her M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2026. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Claudio Conci within the framework of the ALFRED project. Her doctoral research focuses on the structural and functional characterization of vascular tissue substitutes by means of time-resolved positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS).

Catarina Jones completed her integrated master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2023 from Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, Portugal, where she also worked later as a research assistant. Her work focused on the development on wireless piezoelectric nanoparticles that could selectively modulate cancer’s bioelectrical behaviour. In April 2025 she joined the University of Southampton – School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) as PhD student, where she is focused on the development of electroactive platforms to further study the bioelectrical behaviour of in vitro microenvironments and how it can be exploited as a therapeutic target or as a valuable research tool. She is integrated in the Flexible Nanoelectronics Lab under the supervision of prof. Dimitra Georgiadou and Dr. Rujie Sun. She’s currently a visiting PhD Student at the Conci’s Lab working in the framework of the ALFRED ERC-Stg Project.

I was born in Lecco in 1983. I hold a diploma as a mechanical technician, a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, and have been a licensed Industrial Engineer since 2010. I have over 16 years of professional experience running my own engineering firm, Gemma Prototipi, collaborating with both research institutions and companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals. To date, I am named as an inventor on 11 international patents and am a co-author of 21 scientific publications in international journals and conference proceedings. My primary areas of expertise include cell culture devices, biotechnology, and medical devices, with a particular focus on the design of safety-oriented medical devices (in this field, a project for which I served as lead designer and co-inventor won the Red Dot Design Award, the iF Design Award, and the Good Design Award in the same year). I also serve as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of MOAB SRL, an innovative biotechnology company established in 2019 as a spin-off of the Politecnico di Milano, of which I am a co-founder and partner. Since 2026, I have served as a Court-Appointed Technical Expert (CTU) for the Court of Como, specializing in Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Biology

I’m a master student in Physics Engineering and I’m currently working on my master thesis, which focuses on the construction, design and simulation of a system for charged particle acceleration and steering. The final goal of the project is building an antimatter accelerator for PALS studies on biological samples.

I’m Liv Wong. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2024, and I am currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano.

My master’s thesis, titled “Antimatter Spectroscopy of epithelial cellular models” focuses on the characterization of in vitro retinal and liver epithelial models before and after drug administration and their inspection using positron annihilation spectroscopy.

My name is Martina Ceglie. In 2023, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Systems Engineering from Politecnico di Bari, and I am now enrolled in the Master’s degree programme in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano.

My master’s thesis focuses on the design of MRI-detectable synthetic materials and a four-coil system, capable of generating a rotating magnetic field in order to manipulate dispersed in solutions.