Biomaterials Science Blog

Sidi A. Bencherif received two Master’s degrees in Physical Sciences (2000) and then in Materials Science and Engineering (2002) from the University of Montpellier in France. In 2002, he worked for 3 years as a guest researcher at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In 2009, he received a Master’s degree in Polymer Science and a PhD degree in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2009, he joined as a postdoctoral fellow the laboratory of David Mooney at Harvard University and has been appointed as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University since 2016. He can be found on Twitter @bencheriflab.

Read Sidi’s Emerging Investigator article “Engineering a macroporous fibrin-based sequential interpenetrating polymer network for dermal tissue engineering” which was featured on the front cover, and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

I feel that Biomaterials Science is an outstanding journal to read about the latest advances in biomaterials research and to publish our work. Biomaterials Science is among one of the few journals where I find the most interdisciplinary and interesting work on biomaterials, tissue engineering, immunoengineering, and beyond.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Currently, I am most excited about engineering advanced biomaterials to manipulate the fate of mammalian cells, especially immune cells. A challenge in this work is to control the extent of immunostimulation while achieving a beneficial outcome in a safe but also sustained and consistent fashion.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early-career scientists?

One piece of advice I have for other early career scientists is to not be afraid of failure. Many things you try won’t work, but that’s ok. We learn more from failure than from getting something right on the first try. Don’t be discouraged but rather learn from those mistakes, keep working as hard as you can, and everything is going to be all right.

Dr Anna Waterhouse leads the Cardiovascular Medical Devices Group in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, Australia. Anna is an affiliated Group Leader at the Heart Research Institute and a member of the Charles Perkins Centre and Sydney Nano. She received her PhD from the University of Sydney and conducted her postdoctoral research at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. In 2016, she received a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council and established her multidisciplinary group, focusing on biological interactions at material interfaces combined with cardiovascular medical device engineering, specializing in material thrombosis and bioinspired approaches to improve and design new medical devices and diagnostics. She can be found on Twitter @DrAnnaW_lab.

Read Anna’s Emerging Investigator article “Evaluating medical device and material thrombosis under flow: current and emerging technologies” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

One of the most important unanswered questions is how we can fully understand material thrombosis and harness advances in biomaterial development to create medical devices that cause minimal thrombosis, so anti-thrombotic drug use and severe bleeding can be reduced clinically.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Find something you’re passionate about to work on, so when the going gets tough, you’re still doing something you ultimately enjoy.

Dr. Hua Wei has been a professor in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of South China since 2019. He is currently the Director of Hunan Province Cooperative Innovation Center for Molecular Target New Drug Study and the distinguished professor of Furong scholars in Hunan Province. He received B.S. and Ph.D. from Wuhan University. He later joined the University of Sydney as a postdoctoral fellow in 2010, and moved to the University of Washington in 2011 and worked with Prof. Suzie H. Pun for three years. He was a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Lanzhou University from 2014-2018. He is currently serving as an Editorial Advisory Board member for ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, a guest editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology and Molecules, and has been selected as International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) Fellow. He has thus far published over 100 peer-reviewed papers with a total citation over 4000.

Read Hua’s Emerging Investigator article “Synthesis of cyclic graft polymeric prodrugs with heterogeneous grafts of hydrophilic OEG and reducibly conjugated CPT for controlled release” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

It is a great honour to publish a research paper on this topic in the esteemed leading journal, Biomaterials Science, considering the high reputation and quality of the journal in the field of biomaterials science and engineering.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am most excited about the excellent property and performance of cyclic topology-based materials for drug delivery applications, which may inspire more upcoming interesting studies. The most challenging I find about my research is the purification of target cyclic graft copolymers and improvement of the yield.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

The most important questions to be answered in the field of cyclic polymer-based biomaterials, in my opinion, lie in the precise synthesis and modulation of various cyclic topology-derived polymer architectures.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Thoughtful consideration is a prerequisite for scientific research.

João Conde is an Assistant Professor and Group Leader at NOVA Medical School of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ToxOmics, CEDOC. He received his PhD in Biology, specialty in NanoBiotechnology from the NOVA University and Universidad de Zaragoza in 2014, under the FP7 European Consortium NanoScieE+ – NANOTRUCK for the development of multifunctional gold nanoparticles for gene silencing. After, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard-MIT Division for Health Sciences and Technology and in School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London. From 2017 to 2019 he was a Junior Investigator at Instituto de Medicina Molecular. In 2019, he won an ERC Starting Grant to build a genetic biobarcode to profile breast cancer heterogeneity. He is also co-founder of the biotech company TargTex, Targeted Therapeutics for Glioblastoma Multiforme. Since 2020, he is also part of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Consortium from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington. The main aspects related to the recognition and diffusion of his early contributions are: nearly 80 articles in journals of Cancer Therapy, Oncology, Nanotechnology/Materials Science and Biomedicine (Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, PNAS, Accounts of Chemical Research, Progress in Materials Science, ACS Nano, Advanced Materials, JACS, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Functional Materials, Trends in Cancer, Trends in Biotech., Biomaterials, etc.), more than 30 articles are as 1st author and more than 30 articles as corresponding author and cited nearly 4900 times (h-index 36). Several of them have been selected as cover page of journals such as Nature Nanotechnology (COVID-19 Special Issue), Adv. Functional Materials, Trends in Cancer, JACS, Angewandte Chemie, ACS Central Science, ACS Sensors, Biomaterials Science, ACS Applied Bio Mat, Adv. Healthcare Materials, Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry and BioTechniques. Moreover, 6 international patents were submitted and approved, all with relevant developments in nanomaterials-based platforms for cancer therapy and diagnosis. He was also awarded with several international awards, including the Nanomaterials 2020 Young Investigator Award, the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator, the Top 2% Most cited in Nanoscience/Nanotechnology from PLOS Biology, the Wellcome Image Awards 2017, the Nano-Micro Letters Researcher Award, and the National Cancer Institute Image award. He can be found on Twitter @CNanoLab.

Read João’s Emerging Investigator article “Revisiting gene delivery to the brain: silencing and editing” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.” – Richard P. Feynman

Dr. Jessica Weaver obtained her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was supported by the NIH ILET2 training grant and a JDRF Postdoctoral Fellowship. As an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, Dr. Weaver’s research centers on developing translatable cell-based therapies for the treatment of disease, with a focus on islet transplantation for the treatment of Type 1 Diabetes. The Weaver lab uses biomaterials and immunoengineering approaches with the aim to generate immunosuppression-free transplantation strategies. She can be found on Twitter @jdweaverBME.

Read Jessica’s Emerging Investigator article “Biomaterial-based approaches to engineering immune tolerance” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

I was honored to submit our review on biomaterial-based approaches to engineering immune tolerance to the Biomaterials Science 2021 Emerging Investigators Issue, as it is a high impact and widely-read journal in the biomaterials community, ensuring a broad readership of our work.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Our lab is excited about our work in the area of engineering immune tolerance, where there is substantial room for growth and discovery in the use of biomaterials as tools to augment and control the immune response.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

The influence of biomaterials on the immune response has long been a critical aspect of biomaterials research. As we learn more about the mechanisms of immune cell responses to implanted materials, we are poised to make advancements in the use of materials to control and influence these responses. However, there are currently more questions than answers to how biomaterials influence these responses, and the next decade should be an exciting period of investigation and discovery into these biomaterial-influenced immune mechanisms.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

If I had one piece of advice for early career scientists, it would be to reiterate the advice given to me by my trusted mentors: pursue a portfolio of research ideas balanced in high risk/high reward and practicality. Pursue a balance of approaches achievable in the short and long term – this will hopefully maximize the impact of your work both now and in the future.

Jamal Lewis is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis. Prior to his professorship, Dr. Lewis was Senior Scientist at OneVax, LLC and a Post Doctoral Associate in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, where he also received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2012. Dr. Lewis completed his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Florida A&M University in 2004, and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering in 2007 from North Carolina State University. His research, educational and entrepreneurial efforts have been supported by the NIH and DOD. His honors and awards include the prestigious NIH Early Stage Investigator MIRA, Regenerative Medicine Workshop Young Faculty Award, and the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovators Award. He can be found on Twitter @JamalSLewisPhD.

Read Jamal’s Emerging Investigator article “Polymer-loaded hydrogels serve as depots for lactate and mimic “cold” tumor microenvironments” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

Our publication in Biomaterials Science focuses on the development of an engineered biomaterials-based model to understand the immunomodulatory properties of lactate in vivo. The PLGA MP-loaded hydrogels recapitulate the immunosuppressive, “cold” tumor environment and serve as a proxy for the TME. As such, we can use this biomaterials construct to answer fundamental cancer biology questions in vivo, which dovetails closely with the scope of this journal.

Michael Monaghan is Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing and Biomedical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin. Prior to this appointment he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany, following a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology in Stuttgart Germany. His group at Trinity College Dublin focus on the reprogramming of stem cells in vitro using smart biomaterials, bioreactors and cardiomyogenenic extracellular matrices. His lab is also focused on the use of non-invasive microscopy to evaluate extracellular matrix and cell metabolic dynamics (metabolimaging). He can be found on Twitter @drmgmonaghan.

Read Michael’s Emerging Investigator article “Structural crystallisation of crosslinked 3D PEDOT:PSS anisotropic porous biomaterials to generate highly conductive platforms for tissue engineering applications” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

I always enjoy reading the work in this journal which is always timely and rigorously reviewed to ensure high standard pieces of work. I have often reviewed for the journal and found that the initial submissions sent on are of high quality. For me, the greatest strength of the journal is its editorial board and peer review policies.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

The work I am most excited the higher-risk projects in the group that keep us questioning.  I have a great team of researchers and it is their innovation, curiosity and unexpected results that gets me most excited. I feel that we are always close to the pulse of the developments of our field, more now than ever due to social media (twitter etc.) and online events. The most challenging aspect is maintaining momentum through funding support and maintaining continuity in skills within the group.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

I believe we need clever (not complicated!) solutions to advance healthcare and understand disease better. We need to learn from nature, but I also think we need to increase our awareness of nature and look to be more environmentally sustainable (and realistic) in our approaches.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

This will sound cliché but do keep trying and always keep your options open (don’t close any doors). There are plenty of people that want you to succeed so do listen to their advice. And choose your battles.

Dr Chiappini investigates the biointerface blending nanotechnology, bioengineering and cell biology to develop functional materials that direct cell behaviour. His research in this field focuses on regenerative medicine and molecular diagnostics. He has conceived porous silicon nanoneedles which he is developing into a platform capable intracellular interfacing for sensing and delivery. Dr. Chiappini is Senior Lecturer in Nanomaterials and Biointerfaces in the Deparment of Craniofacial Development and Stem Cell Biology. Following a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011, he joined Imperial College London as a Newton International Fellow and Marie Curie Fellow. He can be found on Twitter @altoCC.

Read Ciro’s Emerging Investigator article “Biomaterials-based approaches to model embryogenesis” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

I think it’s a great multidisciplinary journal. It has a broad scope, a strong profile thanks to a reputable publisher and association with a leading learned society and has a very accessible and friendly publication process. For my research, these qualities make Biomaterials Science most suitable to publishing high quality research that does not fit within the narrower scope of a nanotechnology or material science journal.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am very excited by the ability to control cell behaviour at single-cell level, through a combination of high-precision delivery and sensing. I can see how this can be used to build accurate models of tissues and organs. Our research is always quite challenging because we try something not attempted before, and that’s the interesting part about it. The less interesting challenges are the increase in administration and bureaucratic burdens that take the focus away from research.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

In exploring nanoneedles for delivery and sensing there are so many open, exciting questions that we are spoilt for choice. There are fundamental questions on how exactly these interfaces negotiate the cell membrane to grant intracellular access, and these are among the most interesting as they are quite unique to nanoneedles. There are more biological questions on the details of the biophysical interaction, and its implication for cell fate. And there are technological questions on how to design, manufacture and bring to market this exciting new technology.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Do something that you like for as long as you like, and when you stop liking it, move on to something else. There are so many opportunities to be grabbed that it is not worth spending time being miserable.

Dr. Eliza Fong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore with joint appointment at the N.1 Institute for Health. Through her Translational Tumor Engineering (TTE) program, Dr. Fong hopes to change the way cancer patients are currently treated. Most cancer patients do not receive individualized drug treatment regimes. Rather, they receive ‘standard-of-care’ regimens where they are treated with drugs that are known to ‘work’ for a general cohort of patients with the same cancer type. Using biomaterials engineering strategies, Dr. Fong develops platforms to grow patient tumor tissues (organoids and explants) outside the body, so that these engineered tumor tissues can be used to better test drugs and identify the best drug regimen for individual patients. Dr. Fong also looks at recapitulating stromal heterogeneity in these engineered models to enable the discovery of potential new targets in the tumor microenvironment. They can be found on Twitter @elizafongls.

Read Eliza’s Emerging Investigator article “Hydrogels to engineer tumor microenvironments in vitro” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

Dr Clare Hoskins is a Reader in the School of Pure and Applied Chemistry. She has published >50 peer reviewed articles and filed 1 patent. Her research has been supported with over £3M by national (e.g. EPSRC, BBSRC/FAPESP, Wellcome Trust) and international (e.g. Newton-Bhabha & British Council, Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research) research funding. Clare is the Elected Secretary to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Chemical Nanosciences and Nanotechnology Network, she is a committee member of the UK and Ireland Controlled Release Society and she sits on the British Council Grant Review Panel for Newton Grants. In 2019 Clare was awarded the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences ‘Emerging Scientist’ sponsored by Pfizer and also the North Staffordshire Medical Institute Researcher Award. Clare sits on the editorial board of numerous journals in her field, she leads a vibrant interdisciplinary research group within the theme of Bionanotechnology and Analytical Chemistry in the Technology Innovation Centre. The focus of her research is the development of a range of multifunctional nanoparticles and their translation into medical therapies and agricultural products. She can be found on Twitter @HoskinsLab.

Read Clare’s Emerging Investigator article “The regulation of nanomaterials and nanomedicines for clinical application: current and future perspectives” and check out all of the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator articles here.

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

I am very pleased with the journal, time for response and standards and will be pleased to publish again here in the future. I think that it’s nice for the RSC to have an interdisciplinary journal like this.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Our review was really timely – without me knowing it. I have received quite a lot of correspondence due to the pandemic and the nano constituents of some of the vaccines. So I was pleased to see an immediate interest and impact from this. In terms of what is most exciting to me at the minute, it’s really pushing all the fundamental bench work we have as new therapeutics, further down the translational pipeline. Adhering to the regulations mentioned in my review article and finding new methods for safety evaluation of our technologies which are bespoke to nanomedicine and more suitable to application.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

How can we effectively develop an approval pathway for nanomedicines which allow for expedited clinical use, allowing more rapid patient benefit, without compromising patient safety.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Don’t be put off by negative reviews for papers or funding. Remember these are only one person’s opinions. If you think your concepts or proposals are worthwhile, find a way to make them happen, use your networks to help.