Alessandro Grattoni, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Houston Methodist

Dr. Alessandro Grattoni is Chair of the Department of Nanomedicine at the Houston Methodist Research Institute and a leading investigator in the development and clinical translation of implantable nanofluidic platforms for long-term, precision drug delivery. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, where his thesis work on osmotic transport through nanoporous membranes resulted in multiple publications and patents. In 2006, during his doctoral studies in Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Grattoni joined the laboratory of Dr. Mauro Ferrari as a visiting researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, initiating his work on transport phenomena in silicon nanofluidic devices for drug delivery. By early 2007, he began leading the nanochannel Delivery System (nDS) project, coordinating research efforts on the design, fabrication, and validation of silicon nanochannel membranes for sustained therapeutic administration from implantable devices. He completed his Ph.D. in 2009 with fifteen peer-reviewed publications and five patent applications, and shortly thereafter received the Heinlein Trust Microgravity Award to support diffusion studies in microgravity aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. In 2010, he joined The Methodist Hospital Research Institute as an Assistant Member and later became Interim Co-Chair of the Nanomedicine Program. Dr. Grattoni’s research program focuses on the experimental and theoretical analysis of molecular and electrokinetic transport in nanoconfined systems, enabling constant or tunable drug release over months to years. His group develops silicon-based nanochannel membranes, refillable implant platforms, and cell-transplantation technologies, supported by microgravity investigations, NASA-funded studies, and collaborative translational work with NanoMedical Systems, Inc. His efforts encompass molecular sieving, implantable immunotherapy devices, and the in vivo evaluation of long-acting, precision-controlled drug delivery for infectious disease, cancer, and metabolic disorders.