ISTM

I am currently a postdoctoral research associate in Professor Alicia El Haj's group at Keele University, involved with a BBSRC ‘LoLa’ 5-year research grant in collaboration with the Universities of Nottingham (Professor K. Shakesheff), Southampton (Professor R. Oreffo) and Imperial College London (Professor M. Stevens), developing treatments for osteochondral defects combining injectible / implantible growth factors, enriched stem cell populations and biomechanical stimulation through bioreactors.

My research focuses on stimulating mechanostransduction pathways using bioreactors and magnetic nanoparticle technology for both pre-conditioning scaffolds and for scalable in vivo applications. We have developed a novel hydrostatic bioreactor and targeted magnetic nanoparticle technology for providing stimulatory mechanical environments for implanted stem cells in vivo (mouse and sheep), organotypic ex vivo cultures (chick foetal femur) and in vitro cell-seeded scaffolds.

Being closely involved with the Doctoral Training Centre (Keele, Nottingham & Loughborough), I have supervised project students resulting in published work and currently mentor a PhD project student.

My PhD at Nottingham University  involved the characterisation of porous silicon as a biomaterial. We combined microparticles of porous silicon with the biodegradable polymer polycaprolactone to create a novel composite material for orthopaedic tissue engineering. 

The composite we developed behaved similarly to Bioglass-based composites, but yielded significantly more silicic acid in solution - crucially, this silicic acid is considered to be the major active component of Bioglass, resulting in its impressive osteoinductive properties. Porous silicon also has several other interesting features: it is a drug delivery vehicle, an electrical semiconductor and was found to improve the elastic modulus of polycaprolactone. Murine macrophages were not activated by the composite, and substantial evidence suggests that human osteoblasts produced more mineralised matrix when cultured on its surface. Interestingly, porous silicon also seemed able to spontaneously generate silicon substituted apatites in simulated body fluid and increased conductivity (of hydrogels) by an order of magnitude.

Immediately after submitting my PhD I began working with Professor Alexandra Aicher at Nottingham Trent University on an internationally collaborative project investigating tissue engineered injectable therapies for muscle ischemia. Our approach was to introduce controlled release polymer microspheres* to murine muscle which had been rendered ischemic by microsurgically severing the femoral artery. Combination release of VEGF, HGF and angiopoietin was investigated, together with introduced cord blood-derived progenitor cells.

My research focuses on controlling mechanotransduction stimuli for therapeutic stem cells with applications in orthopaedic tissue engineering. Using bioreactors and targeted magnetic nanoparticles, it is possible to remotely activate mechanotransduction in differentiating stem cells, enhancing osteogenesis and complementing other approaches such as sustained release drug delivery and bespoke biomaterials.

My previous work at other institutions has covered injectable stem cell therapies for treating ischemia, the characterisation of novel biomaterials and an analysis of plant-microbe symbioses. I have a general fascination for science and technology, which informs my interests in interdisciplinary research and tissue engineering.

A copy of my thesis is available online at http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/1022/ and the first of two articles is currently under review for the journal Biomaterials (May 2013).

I currently lecture on several subjects, MSc courses and an international summer school covering mechanotransduction, immunology and bioreactor development.

 I am a registered radiation safety officer for the Research Institute and the postdoctoral representative for the Operational Committee responsible for management of the Guy Hilton Research Centre.