Dr. Loretta L. del Mercato is Senior Researcher at Institute of Nanotechnology of CNR (CNR NANOTEC) and coordinator of the «3DCellSensing» group, since December 2018. She received her Master Degree in Biotechnology from the University of Naples “Federico II” in 2004. In 2007, she got her PhD in “Innovative Materials and Technologies” from Institute of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (ISUFI), University of Salento, working at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (NNL). From January 2008-April 2010, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Phillips University of Marburg (DE). In May 2010, she moved as Junior Researcher to the Nanoscience Institute of CNR (IT). In 2015, she joined the new-funded Nanotechnology Institute of CNR (CNR NANOTEC) as Principal Investigator where she started her own research program. She is unit leader of several projects, and she was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant in 2017 and a My First AIRC Grant in 2019, respectively. At CNR NANOTEC, Dr. del Mercato implements a highly interdisciplinary approach, spanning from Materials Science to Chemistry and Bioengineering, to address fundamental challenges in cancer-related research. Through the core expertise in biosensing, stimuli-responsive nanoparticles and biomaterials, her team develops novel approaches for studying cell-cell heterogeneity in 3D in vitro patient-matched tumor models.