**About the Editors**

**Valentina Cauda** is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, head of the TrojaNanoHorse lab (in brief TNHLab) and co-founder of the Interdepartmental laboratory PolitoBIOMed Lab. Thanks to her ERC Starting Grant project (TrojaNanoHorse, GA 678151), established in March 2016, she now leads a multidisciplinary research group of 18 people, including chemists, biologists, physics, engineers, and nanotechnologists. Her main research topic is theranostic nanomaterials: the research team develops metal oxide nanomaterials from wet synthesis, chemical functionalization, and physical–chemical characterization up to their coating by lipidic bilayer from both artificial and natural origins, aimed toward drug delivery, tumor cell targeting, and bio-imaging. Metal oxide nanomaterials, like zinc oxide, mesoporous silica, titania, and metal (gold, silver) nanostructures as well as liposomes and cell-derived extracellular vesicles, are investigated. Valentina Cauda graduated in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from Politecnico di Torino and then received her PhD in Materials Science and Technology in 2008. After a short period at the University of Madrid, she worked as a Postdoc at the University of Munich, Germany, on nanoparticles for drug delivery and tumor cell targeting. From 2010 to 2015, she was Senior Postdoc at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Torino, followed by a move to Politecnico di Torino, where she was appointed Associate Professor. In recognition of her research, she received the prize for young researchers at the Chemistry Department of the University of Munich in 2010, the Gioved`ı Scienza award in 2013, the Zonta Prize for Chemistry in 2015, and the USERN Prize for Biological Sciences in 2017. She has 113 scientific publications and a h-index of 36 (updated on January 2021). She holds 4 international patents on the use of metal oxide nanoparticles in nanomedicine. Prof. Cauda is principal investigator of several industrial, national, and international projects for which she has collectively raised over 5 M€ in funding. The most relevant are the recently granted ERC Proof-of-Concept XtraUS N. 957563, the FET Open RIA MIMIC-KEY, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action MINT N. 842964 (where she acts as supervisor of an incoming postdoc from abroad), and the ERC Starting Grant TrojaNanoHorse. More details are available at https://areeweb.polito.it/TNHlab/.

**Marco Laurenti** received his MSc degree in Physical Engineering in 2011 from the Politecnico di Torino. His thesis work focused on the development of biocompatible thin films (a-Si:H, ZnO) for promoting osteoblasts cell adhesion. In February 2015, he received his PhD in Physics from the Politecnico di Torino in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Center for Space Human Robotics. The subject of his PhD thesis was the sputtering deposition and characterization of pristine and doped ZnO piezoelectric thin films for sensing and energy-harvesting applications. He is currently working as a research assistant at the Politecnico di Torino. His activities and research interests include sputtering deposition of metal oxide thin films (biocompatible/bioactive porous films, electrochromic materials, thin films for memristive devices) and CVD growth of single-layer graphene as a nanoporous membrane for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment.
