Bioinstruments and Bioelectronics
This research area covers a sector that is the outcome of an organised integration of the methodologies and technologies belonging to engineering, primarily of information, with medical and biological issues related to life sciences, to clinical engineering, and to the world of sports and work.
The basic methodologies of this sector regard the modelling of physiological systems (from cellular components to systems and organs); the description of electric and/or magnetic phenomena and equipment to measure and modify them; the elaboration of data and signals; bioimages; the representation of medical and biological knowledge.
The technologies include biomedical and biotechnological equipment (diagnostic, therapeutic, rehabilitating); prosthesis, biomedical robots, artificial intelligence systems; systems for the management and organization of health; medical information technology and telemedicine. The areas of advanced research in biology and neurosciences include engineering of cells and tissues, information technology applied to neurology such as neuroinformatics. Another area of interest is that of bioelectronics with all its theoretical and practical implications.
Also into this area of research fall the development of new technologies and new methodologies for the analytic characterisation of biostructures in cells and tissues (cytofluorometric flows and scans, laser and optical spectroscopy, imaging and in vivo NMR spectroscopy, PET, etc.), and on an atomic level (tunnel microscopy, atomic force microscopy).