Michela Fratini obtained her Master’s degree in Physics in 2004 at Sapienza University of Rome, with a thesis centered on the study and on the manipulation of the intrinsic inhomogeneities of oxide superconductors using high-resolution X-ray techniques. Then, she graduated from the Specialization School in Medical Physics, also at Sapienza University of Rome (2004-2008), acquiring advanced biomedical skills in the most common non-invasive Imaging techniques, in particular in X-ray imaging and in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). During her Specialization thesis, she combined her materials science expertise with her biomedical know-how to develop a “direct-writing” method for the fabrication of arrays of Josephson junctions (potentially useful for MEG SQUID devices), based on the possibility of using X-ray photon illumination to modify the properties of oxide superconductors at a micrometric scale. Finally, she obtained her PhD degree in Physics at the University of Roma Tre (2012-2016). During her PhD she performed an interdisciplinary research combining biomedical and physical science to develop a solid multimodal method to characterize the spinal BOLD signal, based on advanced X-ray imaging techniques, fMRI, and new algorithms. In 2011-2015, she was the recipient of a Centro "E. Fermi" grant, aimed at studying the Spinal Cord by non-invasive imaging techniques (X-ray phase contrast tomography and fMRI). Since 2015 she has a fellowship @ CNR-NANOTEC (within the framework of the VOXEL European Project), to study the neuronal and vascular networks in the healthy and diseased central nervous system, using high-resolution X- ray phase contrast tomography. Since 2016 she is Principal Investigator of a “Young Researcher Project” of the Italian Health Ministry (which she won in 2015), titled “Multimodal experimental and theoretical approach for the study of the Spinal Cord in healthy and diseased subjects”. The project is currently being carried out @ Fondazione Santa Lucia, in collaboration with CNR-Nanotec. She is author of 50 peer-reviewed papers, with more than 500 citations. For her work at Elettra, in ‘12 she was awarded the “Premio Fonda- Fasella”, given annually to a young researcher who obtained important results while working at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste. She is reviewer for many international journals. .
Selected Publications
- Lorenzo Massimi, Michela Fratini et al. “Characterization of mouse spinal cord vascular network by means of synchrotron radiation X-ray phase contrast tomography” Physica Medica (2016).
- Michela Fratini, Inna Bukreeva, Gaetano Campi, et al. “Simultaneous submicrometric 3D imaging of the micro-vascular network and the neuronal system in a mouse spinal cord” Scientific Report 5, 8514, (2015), DOI: 10.1038/srep08514.
- Campi, G; Fratini, M; Bukreeva, I; et al. Imaging collagen packing dynamics during mineralization of engineered bone tissue. Acta biomaterialia Volume: 23 Pages: 30916 Published: 2015-Sep-1 (Epub 2015 Jun 03).
- Daniele Mascali, Mauro DiNuzzo, Tommaso Gili, Marta Moraschi, Michela Fratini, Bruno Maraviglia, Laura Serra, Marco Bozzali, and Federico Giove. Intrinsic Patterns of Coupling between Correlation and Amplitude of Low-Frequency fMRI Fluctuations Are Disrupted in Degenerative Dementia Mainly due to Functional Disconnection. PLoS One 10 (2015), e0120988.
- M. Fratini, M. Moraschi, B. Maraviglia, and F. Giove, “On the impact of physiological noise in spinal cord functional MRI”. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 40, 770– 777 (2014), DOI: 10.1002/jmri.24467 .
- N. Poccia, A. Ricci, G. Campi, M. Fratini, A. Puri, D. Di Gioacchino, A. Marcelli, M. Reynolds, M. Burghammer, N. L. Saini, G. Aeppli, and A. Bianconi, “Optimum inhomogeneity of local lattice distortions in La2CuO4+y”, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. Usa 109, 15685 (2012). .
- N. Poccia, M. Fratini, A. Ricci, G. Campi, L. Barba, A. Vittorini-Orgeas, G. Bianconi, G. Aeppli, and A. Bianconi, “Evolution and control of oxygen order in a cuprate superconductor”, Nat. Mater. 10, 733 (2011).
- M. Fratini, N. Poccia, A. Ricci, G. Campi, M. Burghammer, G. Aeppli, and A. Bianconi, “Scale-free structural organization of oxygen interstitials in La2CuO4+y”, Nature 466, 841 (2010).