Profile

Manuela Ciocca graduated in Medical Engineering from University of Rome Tor Vergata in October 2016 defending a master thesis about developing and testing organic semiconducting polymers or hybrid thin films and their possible interfacing with retinal system to develop Artificial Retinas.
In 2016 she started her PhD in Electronic Engineering on development of Artificial Retinas for sight restoration using organic polymeric thin films.
She won the ITWIIN (Italian Women Inventor&Innovator) Awards-Special Mention MaterialConneXion-Best Innovative woman 2016, and the EIWIIN (European International Women Inventors&Innovators) Special Recognition Award 2017 for ingenious and innovative achievements.
In the past she has worked for ISATEL SRL on the design and development of a multi-functional medical device for physiotherapy and post-traumatic rehabilitation.
Currently she is based at the University of Surrey (UK) for her 2nd PhD year, working on the development of an ink-jet printed polymeric Artificial Retina (project funded by Lazio Region-TORNOSUBITO programme).

Research Activity

Bio-Engineering and Organic Electronics.
Interfacing living systems and tissues with organic electronics is the forefront of bioengineering.
Study and test organic semiconducting polymers and printing techniques to reproduce human retinal visual system. Interfacing semiconducting polymers or hybrid films with retinal systems to study the visual network and to mimic the human visual system.
Design and development of an hybrid photovoltaic device to test retinal and polymers electrical activities, by printing/photolithography techniques.
Medical treatments are improving rapidly with the development of biomedical engineering, computer science and bionics. Biomedical-electronic engineering can play a vital role especially in developing innovative prosthetics that can help overcome handicaps, in particular in restoring sight in blind people via Artificial Vision.

Publications