Publications de Francesco Stellacci

Reliable and robust robotic handling of microplates via computer vision and touch feedback

Francesco Stellacci, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Laboratory automation requires reliable and precise handling of microplates, but existing robotic systems often struggle to achieve this, particularly when navigating around the dynamic and variable nature of laboratory environments. This work introduces a ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2025

Supramolecular Architectures of Dendritic Polymers Provide Irreversible Inhibitor to Block Viral Infection (Adv. Mater. 3/2025)

Francesco Stellacci, Matteo Gasbarri, Heyun Wang

Wiley2025

Cholesterol-rich lipoprotein nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis

Francesco Stellacci, Quy Ong Khac, Lixia Wei

A method for the diagnosis of cancer in a sample of cholesterol-rich lipoprotein nanoparticles obtained from a test subject includes: (a) determining the protein level of at least one protein in the sample of isolated cholesterol-rich lipoprotein nanoparti ...

2025

Facile lipid nanoparticle size engineering approach via controllable fusion induced by depletion forces

Francesco Stellacci, Heyun Wang, Milena Maria Schuhmacher

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are among the most promising drug delivery carriers in research and development, with one major clinical application being messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. Current LNP production methods have the limit of generating low polydispersi ...

2025

Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus resistance to baloxavir, oseltamivir and sialic acid mimetics in single and dual therapies: Insights from human airway epithelia and murine models

Francesco Stellacci

Influenza viruses pose a significant threat due to annual epidemics and pandemic potential. Resistance to current antivirals underscores the need for new drugs and strategies to prevent its emergence. We previously developed two novel HA-targeting compound ...

Elsevier BV2025

Protecting bacteriophages under UV irradiation with brilliant blue FCF for targeted bacterial control

Francesco Stellacci

Compared to the standard methods for treating bacterial diseases, bacteriophages are eco-friendly and chemical-free. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light or sunlight hampers the efficacy of phage-based approaches. This is crucial when phages are i) exposed t ...

2025

Physical determinants of nanoparticle-mediated lipid membrane fusion

Francesco Stellacci

A wide range of fundamental cellular activities rely on lipid membrane fusion. Membrane fusion processes can be mimicked by synthetic approaches to understand fusion mechanisms and develop novel drug delivery systems and therapeutic agents. Recently, membr ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2025

Efficient Direct Cytosolic Protein Delivery via Protein-Linker Co-engineering

Francesco Stellacci, Lixia Wei, Suiyang Liao, Heyun Wang

Protein therapeutics have enormous potential for transforming the treatment of intracellular cell disorders, such as genetic disorders and cancers. Due to proteins’ cell-membrane impermeability, protein-based drugs against intracellular targets require eff ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2025

Lyotropy as a Design Consideration for Ultra-Small Protein Nanoparticles via Electrohydrodynamic Jetting

Francesco Stellacci, Quy Ong Khac

Protein-based nanoparticles offer tailored bioactivity and biodegradability that are distinct from their synthetic polymeric counterparts. Precise engineering of physical properties, especially size, of nanoparticles using electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jetting ...

2025

Size distributions and fractograms of cholesterol-rich lipoprotein nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis

Francesco Stellacci, Quy Ong Khac, Lixia Wei

The present invention relates to a method for the diagnosis of cancer in a sample of cholesterol-rich lipoprotein nanoparticles obtained from a test subject comprising (α) determining the size distribution or the fractogram in chromatography of the cholest ...

2025

A pan-respiratory virus attachment inhibitor with high potency in human airway models and in vivo

Francesco Stellacci

Respiratory viruses can cause severe infections, often leading to hospitalization or death, and pose a major pandemic threat. No broad-spectrum antiviral is currently available. However, most respiratory viruses use sialic acid or heparan sulfates as attac ...

2025

Robot-Assisted Measurement of the Critical Micelle Concentration

Francesco Stellacci, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

The critical micelle concentration (CMC) is the key characterization of surfactants. To date, no method can yield sequential CMC measurements in an automated fashion. This work introduces SIMO (smart integrator for manual operations), a novel robotic platf ...

WILEY2025

Long-Term Protein Synthesis with PURE in a Mesoscale Dialysis System

Sebastian Maerkl, Francesco Stellacci, Laura Sophie Grasemann

Cell-free systems are powerful tools in synthetic biology with versatile and wide-ranging applications. However, a significant bottleneck for these systems, particularly the PURE cell-free system, is their limited reaction lifespan and yield. Dialysis offe ...

2025

Structure-Activity Relationship Studies of Glycosaminoglycan Mimetic Macrocycles Against Herpes

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva

The herpes simplex virus (HSV) is associated with serious conditions, such as encephalitis and blindness, and its infection is closely linked to significant vascular complications and coagulation issues, particularly in individuals with compromised immune ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2025

Structure-Property Relationships of Elastomeric Vinylogous Urethane Thermosets and Their Application as Closed-Loop Recyclable Strain Sensors

Francesco Stellacci, Youwei Ma

Developing closed-loop recyclable thermosets and understanding their structure-property relationships are essential steps in advancing a circular materials economy. Here, we present a vinylogous urethane (VU) thermoset with closed-loop recyclability, synth ...

American Chemical Society2025

Reaction of β-Ketoester and 1,3-Diol to Access Chemically Recyclable and Mechanically Robust Poly(vinyl alcohol) Thermosets through Incorporation of β-(1,3-dioxane)ester

Francesco Stellacci, Youwei Ma

The development of mechanically robust, chemically stable, and yet recyclable polymers represents an essential undertaking in the context of advancing a circular economy for plastics. Here, we introduce a novel cleavable β-(1,3-dioxane)ester (DXE) linkage, ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Benzene with Alkyl Chains Is a Universal Scaffold for Multivalent Virucidal Antivirals

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Lixia Wei, Matteo Gasbarri, Yong Zhu, Heyun Wang

Most viruses start their invasion by binding to glycoproteins' moieties on the cell surface (heparan sulfate proteoglycans [HSPG] or sialic acid [SA]). Antivirals mimicking these moieties multivalently are known as broad-spectrum multivalent entry inhibito ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Supramolecular Architectures of Dendritic Polymers Provide Irreversible Inhibitor to Block Viral Infection

Francesco Stellacci, Matteo Gasbarri, Heyun Wang

In Nature, most known objects can perform their functions only when in supramolecular self-assembled from, e.g. protein complexes and cell membranes. Here, a dendritic polymer is presented that inhibits severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS ...

Wiley2024

Versatile Capillary Cells for Handling Concentrated Samples in Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Francesco Stellacci, Quy Ong Khac, Xufeng Xu

In concentrated macromolecular dispersions, far-from-ideal intermolecular interactions determine the dispersion behaviors including phase transition, crystallization, and liquid-liquid phase separation. Here, we present a novel versatile capillary-cell des ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Nature-inspired recycling of a protein mixture into a green fluorescent protein-based hydrogel

Sebastian Maerkl, Francesco Stellacci

Protein-based materials are biocompatible and have a variety of remarkable properties; consequently, they are finding more and more applications. Nature recycles proteins in multiple ways, ranging from bio-degradation (a slow approach) to fast recycling of ...

2024