Key biomaterials focussed activities in the Department of Materials include the development of new scaffolds for regenerative medicine, biomaterials characterisation, stem cell therapy, cell-materials interface engineering, self-assembled biomimetic copolymers and nanomaterials for biosensing applications. A large proportion of our work focuses on materials that can stimulate beneficial biological responses from the body, such as the stimulation of tissue repair.
Tissue engineering has the potential to achieve this by combining materials design and engineering with cell therapy. Biomaterials can provide physical supports for engineered tissues and powerful topographical and chemical cues to guide cells. Biomaterials engineering involves synthesis, processing, and characterisation of novel materials, including polymers, proteins, glasses, cements, composites and hybrids. Introducing nanoscale cues such as nanotopography or nanoparticles as therapeutic agents provide an exciting approach to modulate cell behaviour. In order to probe the cell-material interface, we are pioneering new analytical and non-invasive techniques such as high resolution electron microscopy and live cell bio-Raman micro-spectroscopy. We are developing new synthetic biocompatible polymeric materials with unprecedented function and probing their biological efficacy.
Another area in which our biomaterials activities are particularly exciting is the tailoring of inorganic nanoparticles such as gold and quantum dots with bioactive peptides so that they can act as reporters for the detection of enzyme activity. Ultrasensitive detection of enzymes related diseases such as cancer or infectious diseases is of huge global impact.
Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Staff
- Dr Iain Dunlop
- Professor Theoni Georgiou
- Professor Julian Jones
- Professor Molly Stevens FREng
- Professor Alexandra Porter
- Dr Alessandra Pinna
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