News
September 2024 | ||
 Daniele Marciano is Awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize at BioMedEng 20246 September 2024Congratulations 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 BioMedEng246 September 2024On 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 Manufacturing22 July 2024The 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 2024Biomimetic 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-Chip2 May 2024Microfabricated 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 Meeting24 April 2024Dr 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 bioengineers13 April 2024Queen 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 issue13 March 2024Highlighting 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 Screen8 March 2024For 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 Manchester13 February 2024Location: SEMS Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Engineering Building [ more … ] | ||