Dr Inserra’s area of research is the mechanical behavior of micro-sized inhomogeneity in complex media. He received his PhD degree in Acoustics from the Le Mans University in 2007 in the field of nonlinear acoustics and was awarded by the RWB Stephens Prize at the International Congress of Ultrasonics for his pioneer work on nonlinear acoustics in granular media (2007). After a postdoctoral fellowship in Kyoto University, Japan, under a JSPS program (2007-2008) in nonlinear acoustics of inhomogeneous media, he came back to France in Bordeaux University (Laboratoire de Mécanique Physique) as a postdoctoral research to perform theoretical studies on substrate-cell adhesion properties probed by gigahertz acoustics. He is currently Associate Professor at the University of Lyon, in the Mechanical Engineering Department, and leader of the “Coupling and Control” group of the LabTAU U1032.
Dr Inserra is working on experimental methods to investigate the interaction mechanisms between ultrasound and surrounding biological cell or tissues, amongst others: (i) the control of cavitation activity at the scale of a unique bubble to a collectively interacting bubble cloud, (ii) the acoustic microstreaming induced by oscillating microbubbles exhibiting shape mode oscillations and (iii) the cellular and tissue response to ultrasound and cavitation stimuli in order to determine underlying effects responsible for cell sonoporation. He recently developed experimental techniques for the control of stable and inertial cavitation activity in bubbly media and its implementation for the controlled sonoporation of suspended or adherent cells. This project was conducted through an international collaboration with Taiwanese research teams (ANR-NSC grant SonInCaRe) and French research teams on the physical behavior of free air bubbles in the vicinity of wall or cells monolayer. He also investigates the interaction of bubbles with BBB-mimicking adherent cells in the context of blood-brain carrier opening by ultrasound (ANR-MOST grant CARIBBBOU). His recent researches projects are dealing with the experimental study of time-resolved bubble dynamics of single-bubble nucleated by laser exhibiting nonspherical bubble oscillations, and the evidence of nonlinear coupling between volumic and nonspherical oscillations of microbubbles.