Serena Bobba, M. Sc. Merck Serono

Serena Bobba is a chemical process engineer and a Ph.D. fellow at Merck Serono. Her field of research comprises freeze-drying of (bio)pharmaceuticals, in a joint program between Politecnico di Torino and Merck Serono.

She has been implementing Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as a non-invasive technique for off-line quality control of freeze-dried products, and as a Process Analytical Technology for in-line freeze-drying monitoring and process design, handling mathematical modeling and multivariate analysis. She lead the characterization of large-scale freeze-driers and dealt with the development of freeze-drying cycles of commercial drug products.

Serena also dedicated to freeze-drying of food, which provided her with the second award from the Italian Association of Chemical Engineer for the innovative and applicative master thesis competition, and the second place from the European Federation of Chemical Engineering for the student contest on drying.