Luigi Barberini

Luigi Barberini is the Coordinator of the Italian Research Unit “Unità di Analisi dei Segnali e delle BioImmagini”, University of Cagliari, Italy.

Born

July 1964 Roma, Italy

Nationality

Italian

Education

University of Cagliari, Italy. Specialization in Medical Physics, 2013

University of Cagliari, Italy. PhD Chemistry, 2007

University of Rome “La Sapienza, Italy Physic Degree, 1998

Fields

Medical Physics, Bioimages Analysis, Networks Analysis, Metabolomics

Institutions

AOUCA Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Cagliari, Italy (2016-Present)

University of Cagliari, Italy (1998-Present)

Notes

Top Italian Scientist in Physics

He is a Specialists in Medical Physics, Expert for the safety in NIR (Non Ionizing Radiation), Expert for the Magnetic Resonance Safety, Expert for the Medical LASERs Safety, Expert for Electromagnetic Fields Safety and Expert in Radioprotection.

His researches are devoted to apply the brain analysis technique as EEG and fMRI and developing new methods of integration between imaging and innovative biological techniques (Metabolomics) to improve the quality of diagnosis processes. As Coordinator of the medical Physics Service of the AOUCA , his contributions are strictly related to quality safety and cost-effectiveness of healthcare services. From this point of view, his activities are patient-oriented, and he is involved in the specification, selection, acceptance testing, commissioning, quality assurance/control and optimised clinical use of medical devices. Further, his activity regard patient risks evaluation and protection from all associated physical agents (x-rays, electromagnetic fields, laser light, radionuclides activity), including the prevention of unintended or accidental exposures.

Author of the following book chapters:

1. Imaging in Neurodegenerative Disorders.
2. Developmental Nephrology: from Embryology to Metabolomics.
3. Magnetic Resonance Imaging Handbook.
4. Neuroimaging of Pain.
5. Elementi di radiobiologia e Radioprotezione.

and Editor in Chief of two Journals of Public Health research:

1. Editor in Chief Journal of Public Health Research.
2. Editor in Chief Healthcare in low-resource Settings.

Education and career

Degree in Physics in 1998, PhD in Chemistry in 2007 and Medical Physics Specialization in 2013. Medical Physicist at the University Hospital of Cagliari AOUCA, Italy. Research and clinical activities for the AOUCA Medical Physics Service: Coordinator of the Medical Physics Service, coordinator of the Research unit “Unità di Analisi dei Segnali e delle BioImmagini”; Expert in Medical Physics, Expert for the NIR “Non Ionizing Radiation”; Expert for Magnetic Resonance Safety; Expert for the Medical LASERs Safety; Expert in Radioprotection.

Consultant Referee of International journals of Physics in Medicine. Invited Speaker in several Medical Congresses. Principal Investigator or co-investigator in research projects funded by public or private agencies or pharmaceutical companies. Participant in research projects funded by national and local agencies and Private Companies. Adjunct Professor of Medical Physics and Computational Neurosciences since 2001. Member of Academic Senate of Cagliari University.

Professional Membership: Italian Physicists Professional Register N. 467/A - Settore Fisico; ANPEQ Associazione Nazionale Professionale Esperti Qualificati; AIFM Italian Association for Medical Physics; ISMRM Italian Chapter of international Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine; GIRPR Italian Researchers Group for Pattern Recognition; Member of CEI - CT 76 (IEC and CENELEC connection of UNI CEI “Laser”); Member of CEI - CT 106 (IEC and CENELEC connection of UNI CEI “human exposure to electromagnetic fields”).

Research interests

Medical Physics

In the recent period he mostly studied the interdependence among interacting brain regions to investigate how the resulting connectivity patterns and networks may organize themselves under any conceivable scenario revealed by the functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging technique, fc-MRI, and EEG-fMRI Electroencephalography intra-resonance imaging EEG fingerprints under naturalistic viewing using a portable device. In the starting period of his career at the university of Cagliari, he studied the properties of some kind of particles detector, synthetic diamond films, they critically discuss the possibility of using this kind of detectors, grown with the Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) technique, as imaging detector in the extreme UV energy range.

Metabolomics

He has introduced and developed in Cagliari the Applied Metabolomics, metabolomics applied to several clinical sectors. He has studied the small-molecule metabolite profiles that specific cellular processes leave behind.

Cardiovascular and coronary artery disease applications

The purpose of his studies in the cardiological field mainly was to assess whether metabolomics, associated with other medical diagnostic techniques, as echocardiography for example, was able to highlight pathophysiological differences between different cardiovascular pathologies as obstructive (OHCM) or non-obstructive (NOHCM) hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Their data point out a different systolic function related to a specific metabolic activity in the two HCM phenotypic forms, with specific metabolites associated with better contractility in OHCM.

Autism applications

A supervised multivariate model to classify the metabolome alterations between autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) patients and controls, siblings of autistic patients, has been realized and used to realize a network model of the ASD patients’ metabolome. Children with autistic disease composing our studied population showed elevated concentration of several organic acids and sugars. Interactions among diet, intestinal flora and genes may explain such findings.

Cancer (CRC and limphoma) applications

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has been confirmed to be the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in males and the second in females. They investigated the blood plasma metabolome in CRC patients and in healthy adults to elucidate the role of some molecules, demsostrating that the abundance of D-mannose in CRC patient samples contributes to inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, while the abundance of fructose may be consistent either with low consumption of fructose by aerobic glycolysis within cancer cells or with a high bioavailability of fructose from diet. Overall, 125 metabolites were identified in plasma samples by GC, im proving the CRC mechanism interpretation.

With his team, they studied also the Lymphoma, which defines a group of different diseases. This study examined pre-treatment plasma samples from 66 adult patients (aged 20-74) newly diagnosed with any lymphoma subtype, and 96 frequency matched population controls. They used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to compare the metabolic profile by case/control status and across the major lymphoma subtypes. Metabolomic analysis was able to highlight interesting differences between lymphoma patients and population controls, allowing the discrimination between pathologic and healthy subjects. Further studies are warranted to understand whether the peculiar metabolic patterns observed might serve as early biomarkers of lymphoma.

Multiple sclerosis

Among the neurodegenerative disease he studied with his team the Multiple Sclerosis in order to investigate the metabolomic profiles of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to define the metabolic pathways potentially related to MS pathogenesis. Using plasma samples from patients with MS (therapy-free for at least 90 days) and healthy controls (HC) characterised by means 1H-NMR spectroscopy they identified the metabolites discriminating the MS profiles. The model obtained with the OPLS-DA identified predictive metabolic differences between the patients with MS and HC and the suitability of the model was evaluated using an external set of samples. From their studies, Metabolomics appears to represent a promising non-invasive approach for the study of MS.

Bioimages Analysis

Clot characterization

Clot characterization is, to the present days, a multimodal approach: scanning the clot by electron microscopy (SEM) is helpful for the visualization of fibrin structure along with laboratory parameters such as the clot waveform analysis (CWA) and thrombin generation in different settings of clot abnormalities. This study aimed to assess whether the coagulative parameters were consistent with the clot images texture acquired by SEM, and therefore to propose a more generalist and integrative approach to clots classification.

Epilepsy

Seizures induced by musical stimulation are usually correlated to temporal epilepsy, although the precise localization of their epileptogenic networks are not well characterized. Usually, the brain images are correlated with off-line EEG recordings. In their study they used the EEG-fMRI technology with a EEG system operating directly in the MRI examination room for the simultaneous recording of EEG and f-MRI signals; the simultaneous multimodal recording of the episode of musicogenic epilepsy is mandatory to achieve a better foci localization. We described the EEG-fMRI co-recording of musicogenic elicited seizures in a case of simple partial epilepsy, and their results have shown that EEG features recorded in epileptogenic areas are largely coupled with rCBF increase.