Southampton Student Wins Postgraduate of the Year

University of Southampton student Dario Carugo has been awarded the prestigious Life Sciences Postgraduate of the Year prize, which he received at the inaugural UK Life Science Skills Awards hosted by Cogent in London during May.
The findings from Dario’s studies have opened novel insights into targeted drug delivery for cancer therapy. “I am extremely pleased to have won this award. I am planning to continue my research investigations in the field of bio-microfluidics and bio-engineering, with particular attention devoted to applications in bio-analyses, diagnostics and clinical therapies,” Dario said.

During the course of his PhD studies, Dario from Engineering Science and the Institute for Life Sciences has analysed, designed and implemented a number of innovative ideas for the study of biofluidics related to therapeutic applications, which have resulted in ten research papers published in high-impact journals.

One objective of Dario’s research is to develop microfluidic devices capable of treating cells in suspension. For example, blood from a patient with leukaemia could be introduced into a device, treated using ultrasound and reintroduced into the patient’s body. He is also exploring the potential of developing a device that could be implanted into bone marrow for the treatment of leukaemia. Such gentler and more targeted treatments could reduce the unwanted side effects of conventional therapies. The devices could also be used for quicker and cheaper testing of new drugs.

Dario is also actively involved in the FP7 AQUALITY project aimed at developing innovative ultrasonic microdevices to be employed in water quality analysis systems.