The “Transformers” team was selected by the European Space Agency for the “2014 Spin Your Thesis!” campaign. After rigorous selection procedures at European level, the team was selected with other three groups to perform experiments under altered gravity conditions at the Large Diameter Centrifuge, that allows the application of gravity values up to 20 times the Earth gravity. The team is composed by people of the Center for Micro-BioRobotics of the Italian Institute of Technology in Pisa (CMBR-IIT, Italy): Gianni Ciofani, Agostina Grillone, Antonella Rocca, Silvia Gualtieri, Attilio Marino and Giada Genchi. The experiment aims at investigating hypergravity as a means to deliver genes useful against genetic diseases as the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The experiments will be performed at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk (The Netherlands). Samples will be analyzed at the CMBR-IIT. The expected results may provide new therapeutic approaches to several genetic diseases.
