News

September 2024

Daniele Marciano is Awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize at BioMedEng 2024 6 September 2024 Congratulations to Daniele Marciano, who was awarded a prize for his oral presentation on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Association! Daniele described some of his work on the engineering of novel hydrogels with controlled microstructure and how this regulates stem cell phenotype, harnessing a secretory profile conducive of tissue repair. [ more … ]

Queen Mary hosts over 400 delegates at BioMedEng24 6 September 2024 On Thursday 5 and Friday 6 September, Queen Mary University of London proudly hosted BioMedEng24, the 16th annual conference bringing together experts from across the Biomedical Engineering industry in the UK and internationally. [ more … ]

July 2024

Protein Nanosheet Engineering for iPSC Manufacturing 22 July 2024 The team of Prof Gautrot is leading a major research program funded by the ERC (ProLiCell - ) to uncover design principles enabling the culture of adherent cells at the surface of liquids. This surprising phenomenon is enabled by the self-assembly of protein nanosheets at liquid-liquid interfaces (e.g. oil droplets), displaying remarkably strong mechanical properties, despite their nanoscale thickness. This enables resisting the contractile forces generated by cells upon spreading and regulates stem cell phenotype. This technology has unique application for the manufacturing of stem cells, paving the way to the applications of mesenchymal stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells for regenerative medicine. This report was published in the prestigious journal Adv. Materials. [ more … ]

Seminar Series - Dr Elisa Migliorini (CEA, Grenoble, France) 2 July 2024 Biomimetic materials presenting extracellular matrix components to study bone morphogenetic protein bioactivity  [ more … ]

May 2024

QMUL Team Develops The First Functional Microvascularised Cardiac Spheroid-on-a-Chip 2 May 2024 Microfabricated organ-on-a-chips are rapidly becoming the gold standard for the testing of safety and efficacy of therapeutics. A broad range of designs has emerged, but recreating microvascularised tissue models remains difficult in many cases. This is particularly relevant to mimic the systemic delivery of therapeutics, to capture the complex multi-step processes associated with trans-endothelial transport or diffusion, uptake by targeted tissues and associated metabolic response. In this report, we describe the formation of microvascularised cardiac spheroids embedded in microfluidic chips. Different protocols used for embedding spheroids within vascularised multi-compartment microfluidic chips were investigated first to identify the importance of the spheroid processing, and co-culture with pericytes on the integration of the spheroid within the microvascular networks formed. The architecture of the resulting models, the expression of cardiac and endothelial markers and the perfusion of the system was then investigated. This confirmed the excellent stability of the vascular networks formed, as well as the persistent expression of cardiomyocyte markers such as cTNT and the assembly of striated F-actin, myosin and α-actinin cytoskeletal networks typically associated with contractility and beating. The ability to retain beating over prolonged periods of time was quantified, over 25 days, demonstrating not only perfusability but also functional performance of the tissue model. Finally, as a proof-of-concept of therapeutic testing, the toxicity of one therapeutic associated with cardiac disfunction was evaluated, identifying differences between direct in vitro testing on suspended spheroids and vascularised models. [ more … ]

April 2024

Dr Neri-Cruz Awarded Prize at Annual London Polymer Group Meeting 24 April 2024 Dr Carlos Neri-Cruz presented his research work on the engineering of novel gene delivery vectors at the london polymer group annual meeting, hosted at UCL. His presentation was awarded a prize! Congratulations to him for this fantastic achievment! [ more … ]

Queen Mary team awarded £7 million grant to train next generation of organ-on-a-chip scientists and bioengineers 13 April 2024 Queen Mary University of London is one of sixty-five universities chosen to receive funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of a landmark £1 billion doctoral training investment. [ more … ]

March 2024

SEMS lecturer, Dr Dimitrios Papageorgiou, featured in Nanoscale 2024 Emerging Investigators issue 13 March 2024 Highlighting the innovative work of early-career researchers in nanoscience and nanotechnology, the latest issue of the Nanoscale journal presents SEMS Senior Lecturer in Materials Science, Dr Dimitrios Papageorgiou's latest paper on stretchable polymer nanocomposite strain sensors. [ more … ]

Celebrating International Women's Day: Meet Professor Hazel Screen 8 March 2024 For International Women's Day, we're reflecting on some of the women in Engineering who have inspired us. [ more … ]

February 2024

SEMS Seminar Series: Professor Mike Turner, University of Manchester 13 February 2024 Location: SEMS Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Engineering Building [ more … ]

September 2023

BioMedEng23 Conference Highlights the Pioneering Work of Queen Mary Bioengineering 21 September 2023 At the recently concluded BioMedEng23 conference, Queen Mary Bioengineering showcased its prowess and contributions to UK Biomedical Engineering. The two-day event, organised by The Association of Biomedical Engineers, Medical Engineers, and Bioengineers (BioMedEng Association), highlighted remarkable advances in and around the UK biomedical sector. [ more … ]

Prof. Gautrot Gives Keynote Lecture at European Society for Biomaterials 2023 in Davos 10 September 2023 Prof. Gautrot Gives Keynote Lecture at European Society for Biomaterials 2023 in Davos [ more … ]

May 2023

Dr Ravinash Krishna Kumar Awarded £1.8m ESPRC Fellowship 10 May 2023 Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is delighted to announce that Dr Ravinash Krishna Kumar, a Lecturer in Medical Technology from the School of Engineering and Materials Science, has been awarded a prestigious £1.8 million, 5-year EPSRC Open Plus Fellowship. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) fellowships support exceptional researchers in delivering research excellence and leading the research base towards a modern working culture. [ more … ]

April 2023

Design of tough DNA origamis 19 April 2023 Design of tough DNA origami biointerfaces [ more … ]

Engineering Protein Assembly at Liquid Interfaces for Cell Manufacturing 11 April 2023 Engineered proteins enable cell adhesion and proliferation at the surface of microdroplet microcarriers [ more … ]

February 2023

Mesenchymal Stem Cells Sense the Toughness of Nanomaterials and Interfaces 5 February 2023 Lihui Peng et al. published in Advanced Healthcare Materials [ more … ]

January 2023

Dimitrios Papageorgiou is presented the Rosenhain Medal and Prize by the IOM3 1 January 2023 Dimitrios was presented with the Rosenhain Medal at an Awards Ceremony at the IOM3 on the 8th December 2022. The Rosenhain Medal and Prize is a highly competitive award that recognises distinguished achievement in any branch of materials science. The award was given in recognition of Dimitrios' research which has been seen to significantly develop the understanding of the relationships between structure and property in polymers and composites reinforced with high-performing two-dimensional materials. [ more … ]

October 2022

Seminar Series: Dr Mark Kotter, Cambridge 18 October 2022 Regenerative Medicine and Spinal Cord Injury: [ more … ]

May 2022

MoBioC 2022 Seminar Series: Prof. Lynne Regan (University of Edinburgh) 2 May 2022 Engineering novel materials and surfaces using proteins [ more … ]

April 2022

MoBioC 2022 Seminar Series: Prof. Carsten Werner (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research) 7 April 2022 Cell-Instructive Polymer Hydrogels Based on Sulfated Glycosaminoglycans [ more … ]

MoBioC 2022 Seminar Series: Prof. Steve Armes (University of Sheffield) 1 April 2022 Bespoke block copolymer nano-objects via polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA) in aqueous media [ more … ]

February 2022

MoBioC 2022 Seminar Series: Prof. Thomas Hermans (Universite de Strasbourg) 23 February 2022 Controlling self-assembly by chemical fuels [ more … ]

November 2021

New insights into the design of RNA delivery vectors 8 November 2021 What happens to gene delivery vectors when they enter the cell cytoplasm? This question had remained understudied, in particular in the case of polycationic vectors. Yet it may have a significant impact on the timing and localisation of the release of RNA or DNA molecules to be delivered. [ more … ]

MoBioC Launch Announced! 7 November 2021 The launch event for the Centre for Molecular Biochemical Engineering will be on Wednesday 19th January. On this occasion, Prof. Cameron Alexander will present work from his group at the interface between macromolecular design, the chemistry of precision therapeutics and their application to the biomedical field. [ more … ]

The programme for the MoBioC 2022 seminar series is out! 5 November 2021 In parallel to the launch of our Centre for Molecular Biochemical Engineering, we are launching the MoBioC seminar series for 2022. We have a fantastic line up of speakers. Join us! [ more … ]