Monica Soncini has a Master degree in Electronic Engineering (1996) and obtained her PhD degree in Bioengineering in 2001. She is currently working as Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano. She is involved in the research activities of the Biomechanics Research Group and she operates in Micro and Biofluid Dynamics Laboratory and Computational Biomechanics Laboratory.
Monica Soncini main research activities are in the field of biomechanics at the molecular level (cytoskeleton, amyloid proteins and peptides and nuclear pore complex) and in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In the field of molecular biomechanics/biophysics she was involved into two European projects (FP6) focused on active biomimetic systems (STREP2004 and MarieCurieEST2004) and she is now contributing to ERC-grant NICHOID for investigating mechanotransduction mechanisms at the nuclear pore level. Another recent field of research at the molecular level is the investigation of small peptides aggregation and stability properties. In the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine she was involved in several research projects with the aim of developing culture systems for aortic homograft recellularisation, cardiac tissue regeneration (PRIN2006, CARIPLO2008), pericardium and bladder decellularization, urinary bladder regeneration (PRIN2008, as Unit PI), perfusion systems for stem cells expansion (CARIPLO2006), and ex vivo culture systems for the analysis of cellular mechanisms at the base of saphenous vein graft arterialization (RF-GR-2011 as Unit PI). In the last years the activities are focused on tissue culture systems for vascular native or engineered tissues. Two of the bioreactor systems developed in the last year have been patented.
Monica Soncini is Lecturer of Cellular Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano since 2005. Member of the Bioengineering PhD School Committee, Politecnico di Milano since 2011. Supervisor of 7 PhD students. She is author of about 200 publications; 64 peer reviewed international papers (Scopus H-index 20).