Politecnico di Torino

Politecnico di Torino is a university devoted to Engineering and Architecture
studies and strongly committed to collaboration with industry. In the Department of
Mathematical Sciences, research is carried out in most fields of
contemporary Mathematics, including Statistics. The Statistics group provides service
courses in Statistics to all Engineering students, advises students in Mathematical
Engineering interested in Probability, Statistics and Optimization and has a good record of
public, EU and private funding. In particular, collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry
has been going on for several years, see for example the School in Statistics for Clinical
Trials offered to Italian pharmaceutical SME’s in 2003.

Main research topics:
methodology of clinical trials, design of experiments, Bayesian methods, algebraic
statistics.

Key Personnel:

Prof. Mauro Gasparini
Supervisor: Modelling and simulation for the early development of a modified administration route
Prof. Mauro Gasparini has been in Politecnico di Torino since 1999, and Full Professor since 2002. Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1992,
Assistant professor at Purdue University from 1992 to 1996, then from 1996 to 1998
Clinical Biostatistician in Novartis Pharma. He has been consulting with various
pharmaceutical industries (Novartis, Alcon, Bayer, Glaxo) and biomedical research centers
(San Raffaele Milan, Istituto Tumori Toscano, Fondazione Edo Tempia Biella, Istituto
Zooprofilattico Sperimentale). Currently Editor-in-Chief of Biometrical Journal with Lutz
Edler (Heidelber). He has supervised 4 Ph.D. students and more than 20 bachelor and
masters level students.

Dr. Roberto Fontana
Supervisor: Innovative designs for combination of existing therapies
Roberto Fontana is ricercatore (i.e. Assistant Professor) since October 2006. He
previously worked as director of the Tourism Observatory of Regione Piemonte (Jan 02-
Sep 06) and as responsible for the “Statistical Methodologies” unit at Fiat Research
Centre, Orbassano, Torino, Italy (Mar 95 – Dec 01). During this period he has been the
scientific coordinator of several projects, some at European level, concerning the industrial
applications of Statistics. He has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Turin
(cum laude) and a PhD in Mathematics from Politecnico di Torino.

IDEAS PhD projects supervised and located at DISM A :

• Project 8: Innovative designs for combination of existing therapies
• Project 9: PK/PD, modelling and simulation for the early clinical development of a modified therapeutic administration route