Prof. Silvia Giordani and Prof. Meenal Datta Receive a 2026 DCU – Notre Dame Exchange Grant

The Giordani Group is delighted to announce that Prof. Silvia Giordani (DCU) and Prof. Meenal Datta (University of Notre Dame) have been awarded one of the 2026 Notre Dame-DCU Exchange Grants in Precision Biomedical Technologies.

The programme, jointly supported by the DCU Life Sciences Institute (LSI) and the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health (BIPH) at the University of Notre Dame, supports outstanding international collaboration through researcher exchanges. The 2026 call has funded four collaborative projects spanning complementary areas of biomedical research.

The awarded project will bring together world-leading expertise from both institutions in nanomaterials engineering and tumour mechanobiology to develop innovative therapeutic strategies for glioblastoma.

Prof. Silvia Giordani, Full Professor and Chair of Nanomaterials in DCU’s School of Chemical Sciences, is an internationally recognized leader in carbon nanomaterials for biomedical applications. Her group specializes in the synthesis and surface functionalization of carbon nano-onions (CNOs), ultra-small, multi-layered fullerene nanostructures with excellent biocompatibility and potential for targeted drug delivery and deep-tissue imaging.

Prof. Meenal Datta, the Jane Schoelch DeFlorio Collegiate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Notre Dame, leads the TIME Lab, which studies how the physical microenvironment of tumors shapes disease progression and treatment response. Her group has pioneered in vitro and in vivo compression models that reproduce the solid-stress conditions characteristic of glioblastoma, enabling precise study of how mechanical forces alter cellular behavior and the transport of therapeutics.

Through reciprocal research visits between DCU and Notre Dame, the project will integrate advanced CNOs drug delivery platforms with specialized mechanobiological systems. This interdisciplinary approach will provide new insights into the performance of nanotherapeutics within mechanically complex tumour environments and help identify strategies to improve their delivery and efficacy.

The Giordani Research Group is proud to be part of this prestigious international initiative and looks forward to the scientific discoveries and collaborative opportunities that will emerge from the programme.

For more information on the award, please visit the full announcement on the DCU Life Sciences News Portal.