Professor Sergey Mikhalovsky, Dr Stuart James, Dr Liz James and Dr Ray Whitby.
These four members of staff are currently involved with supervising a number of projects integrating their interests in Physical Chemistry, Materials Science, Cell Biology and Clinical Applications.
This work includes
- development (in collaboration with the National Physical Laboratories) of international standards (ASTM) for measuring cell adhesion to biomaterials;
- the measurement of degradation of tissue engineering scaffolds;
- the interaction of primary human cells with carbon nanotube arrays (with Surrey University) and carbon nanotube buckypapers;
- the use of synthetic and natural cryogel constructs in a number of tissue regeneration applications, both civilian and military (with colleagues from Sweden and Belgium);
- the development of an artificial cornea;
- the use and scale-up of hair follicle stem cells with a biomaterial for the regeneration of skin (with colleagues from industry and the University of Durham); and the use of mesenchymal stem cells in the regeneration of bone (with Dr Santin).
These projects fall under the umbrella of biomaterial development for use in tissue regeneration and wound repair, and carbon nanotubes and cryogels are particularly exciting in this context because of their unusual physical properties. We have developed buckypapers which support primary cell growth, and these exhibit interesting properties at the nanometer range, while cryogels also display remarkable physical resilience, together with very low flow resistance, making them important candidates as tissue engineering scaffolds.
The group has strong links with the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead, an internationally recognised centre for burns treatment and reconstructive surgery, facilitating translation of laboratory work to clinical trial.
| Array of carbon nanotubes for use as a bioelectrode (Courtesy Dr P Watts UoSurrey ) | |
| Collagen gel for use as a tissue engineering scaffold |  |
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Cellbank for use in cell adhesion studies |
| Propidium Iodide stained cells growing on a nanotube array |  |
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Carbon nanotubes as a ‘paper’ for cell growth |
