Rossella Mauro is a PhD student in the Applied Physics, Biophysics, and Microfluidics Lab led by Professor Roberto Rusconi at Humanitas University and Humanitas Research Hospital.

She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from the University of Parma, where her experimental thesis was titled “Research of new bacterial enzymes involved in phosphonates degradation.” She also holds a Master of Science in Genomic, Molecular, and Industrial Biotechnology from the same university, during which she completed a one-year internship at the Immunopathology Laboratory at the University-Hospital of Parma. Her Master’s thesis briefly focused on the effect of viral mutations on CD8-mediated T lymphocyte exhaustion in patients affected by chronic hepatitis B.

During her two-year predoctoral fellowship at Humanitas University, Rossella investigated bacterial biofilms associated with nosocomial and medical device infections. She explored the antibacterial and antibiofilm properties of natural extracts, primarily polyphenols, encapsulating them into nanoparticles to study their influence on biofilm formation under both static and dynamic microfluidic conditions.

Currently, Rossella is enrolled in the PRIME (Personalized care in Medicine and Engineering) PhD program, a joint initiative with Politecnico di Milano. Her research project focuses on bacterial electrophysiology and antibiotic resistance in microfluidics.