Fontanella

Chiara Giulia Fontanella
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova
Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
tel +39 049 8276754
e-mail chiaragiulia.fontanella@unipd.it

Research Activity

Chiara Giulia Fontanella is an Associate Professor at the multidisciplinary Centre for Mechanics of Biological Materials. Her research activities focus on investigating the mechanical functionality of biological tissues and structures in cooperation with researchers from various fields like engineering, physiology, medicine, and surgery. The mission is to optimize surgical procedures and biomedical devices by considering mechanical and mechano-biological aspects. The approach involves integrating in vitro biomechanical experimentations on human and animal tissues and structures with in silico mathematical modeling to design and validate novel procedures and devices. During her PhD, she analyzed the biomechanical behavior of foot tissues, which she continued during her Post Doc research. She also evaluated the influence of degenerative conditions due to aging, trauma, and disease. Over the years, she has investigated the mechanical behavior of the gastrointestinal and lower urinary tracts, corneal tissues, knee, and fascial systems to provide computational tools for improving biomedical devices, surgical practices, and treatments. In recent years, she has developed an artificial intelligence approach to automatically identify and quantify human tissues and structures, evaluating specific biomarkers. This approach is a small step towards evidence-based, preventative, site-specific, and patient-specific care.

Five most representative publications

  • Pettenuzzo, S., Belluzzi, E., Pozzuoli, A., Macchi, V. Porzionato, A., Boscolo-Berto, R., Ruggieri, P., Berardo, A., Carniel, E.L., Fontanella, C.G., Mechanical Behaviour of Plantar Adipose Tissue: From Experimental Tests to Constitutive Analysis (2024) Bioengineering, 11(1), 42, DOI:10.3390/bioengineering11010042
  • Toniolo, I., Mascolini, M.V., Carniel, E.L., Fontanella, C.G., Artificial sphincters: An overview from existing devices to novel technologies (2023) Artificial Organs,  47(4), pp. 617–639, DOI: 10.1111/aor.14434
  • Fontanella, C.G., Belluzzi, E., Pozzuoli, A., Scioni, M., Olivotto, E., Reale, D., Ruggieri, P., De Caro, R., Ramonda, R., Carniel, E.L., Favero, M., Macchi, V., Exploring Anatomo-Morphometric Characteristics of Infrapatellar, Suprapatellar Fat Pad, and Knee Ligaments in Osteoarthritis Compared to Post-Traumatic Lesions (2022) Biomedicines,  10(6), 1369, DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines10061369
  • Carniel, E.L., Toniolo, I., Fontanella, C.G., Computational biomechanics: In-silico tools for the investigation of surgical procedures and devices (2020) Bioengineering, 7(2), pp. 1–12, 48, DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering7020048
  • Fontanella, C.G., Matteoli, S., Carniel, E.L., Wilheielm, J.E., Corvi, A., Natali, A.N., Investigation on the load-displacement curves of a human healthy heel pad: In vivo compression data compared to numerical results (2012) Medical Engineering and Physics,  34(9), pp. 1253–1259, DOI: 10.1016/j.medengphy.2011.12.013