Professor Maria Luisa Torre, PhD - Chief of Scientific Board
Maria Luisa Torre, scientific founder of PharmaExceed, is Full Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Piemonte Orientale, and the supervisor of the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Formulation Lab at the Drug Sciences Department. She designed an innovative process for large-scale production and freeze-drying of exosomes and extracellular vesicles form mesenchymal stromal cells. This process allows to obtain a powder product, called Lyosecretome, that represents the core of PharmaExceed’s product portfolio.
Dr Torre graduated cum laude in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies (1991) at the University of Pavia. Here and in the same year, she received the licence to practice Pharmacist Profession. She received her PhD in Chemistry and Pharmacological Technology in 1995, from the University of Pavia, where, three year later, she received her post-graduate specialization in Industrial Pharmacy. She was a postdoctoral fellow and reserarcher at the department of Drug Sciences at the University of Pavia. In 2001 she was appointed Assistant Professor and in 2015 Associate Professor
Her research activity concerns the formulation of controlled release delivery systems for chemical, biological and cell-based medicinal products. In detail, the scientific activity, documented by more than 80 scientific articles in academic journals, was devoted to the following fields:
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Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (tissue engineering and cell therapy), with the design of GMP-compliant and large scale cell encapsulation processes;
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Regenerative Medicine (pancreatic islets, intervertebral disk, cartilage and skin) for the treatment of chronic degenerative, acute or post-traumatic, diseases, through the combination of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells and silk-fibroin scaffolds which promote cell adhesion and proliferation;
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Micro- and Nano- Drug Delivery Systems using natural (alginate, silk fibroin, and sericin) and synthetic biopolimers, to load and administer bioactive substances (proteins,vitamins, flavonoids, phytocomplexes);
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Regenerative Nanomedicine: extracellular vesicles (exosomes and microvesicles) derived from mesenchymal stem cells have been studied instead of their parental cells, for the treatment of degenerative, autoimmune, chronic and inflammatory diseases. In detail, a solid and standardized pharmaceutical dosage form containing extracellular vesicles has been designed, and a reproducible, robust, and scalable production process has been set up. Moreover, stem cell-extracellular vesicles has been investigated and proposed as next generation drug delivery system.
In the last five years she has been supervisor of more than 25 thesis (Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology and Pharmacy), and she has been tutor of 6 PhD students.
In her scientific career she has granted funds in competitive selections for the following projects:
ATEx Advanced Therapies Experiences, funded for developing an interregional project in the framework of the Cooperation Program INTERREG V-A Italia-Svizzera 2014-2020. Project ID 637541. 2018-2023
Microflower Id. 2014-0601, Fondazione Cariplo 2014.
Stemdelivery, id 42617604, Regione Lombardia-Fondazione Cariplo 2013.
Fibropan, Fondazione Cariplo, Bando Materiali Avanzati 2012.
Riprowel Microsem, Ministero delle Politiche Agricole e Forestali, Decreto MiPAAF 13576 (24/5/2011).
E/5227 Fibrosphere, Eurostars 2009.
Panagenesi ID 5167. Regione Lombardia, Bando Metadistretti (d.g.r. n. 6735/ 2008).