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Witamy
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AboutUs
We are chemists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, biologists who work alongside to design bionic units that mimic specific biological functions and/or introduce operations that do not exist in Nature. We apply a constructionist approach where we mimic biological complexity in the form of design principles to produce functional units from simple building blocks and their interactions. We called such an approach: Molecular Bionics.
theTeam
Prof Giuseppe Battaglia
Principal Investigator
Beppe (short for Giuseppe) is the Chair of Molecular Bionics in the Department of Chemistry at University College London, ICREA Research professor and Group Leader at Institute of Bioengineering of Catalunya
Laurea in Chemical Engineering (UoPalermo)
Ph'D Soft Matter Physics
(UoSheffield)
Dr Denis Cecchin
Operation Officer
(London)
SomaServe Chief Technical Officer
(Cambridge)
Denis manages our labs operations in London and is also in charge of our translational activities. He's the CTO of both our two spin outs: SomaServe ltd and SomaNautix Ltd
Laurea in Pharmaceutical Technology and Chemistry
PhD in Cell and Tissue Engineering
(UoPadova)
Dr Clauida Di Guglielmo
Operation Officer
(Barcelona)
Claudia manages our labs operations in Barcelona. She's an expert in induced pluripotent stem cells and tissue engineering
Laurea in Medical-Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
(UoFerrara)
PhD in Biomedicine
(UoBarcelona)
MANAGEMENT
Dr Lorena Ruiz-Perez
Deputy Group Leader & Microscopy Lead
(Barcelona)
Lorena is a Senior Research Fellow and Electron microscopy facility manager
Licenciatura in Physics
(UoSeville)
PhD in Soft Matter Physics (UoSheffield)
PDRA UoSheffield, UCL
Dr Joe Forth
Ramsey Fellow & Physical Biology Lead
(London)
Joe is a 2020 Ramsey research fellow and he's developing novel methods for printing soft materials)
MSc. In Physics
(UoBirstol)
Ph.D. In Physics
(University of Edinburgh)
PDRA Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UCL
Dr Mohit Kumar
Mohit is a Caixa Junior Leader Fellow and is developing out-of-equilibrium nanomaterials for targeted therapy.
B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemistry, (Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning)
Ph.D. in Nanomaterials (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research)
Caixa Junior Leader Fellow & Molecular Engineering
lead
(Barcelona)
RESEARCH FELLOWS
Dr Diana Lourenço Matias
CRUK PDRF & NanoOncology lead
(London)
Diana is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow sponsored by the CRUK in collaboration with Prof Simona Parrinello at the UCL Cancer Institute
B.Sc. in Biochemistry
(UoEvora)
M.Sc. in Biomedical research
(UoCoimbra)
Ph.D. inn in Morphological Sciences
(UoRio de Janeiro)
Dr Daniel Gonzalez-Carter
Caixa Junior Leader Fellow
& NanoNeurology lead
(Barcelona)
Daniel is a Caixa Junior leader postdoctoral fellow
B.Sci Biochemistry and Biological Chemistry, (UoNottingham)
MSc. Pharmacology (King's College London)
Ph'D in Neuroscience (Imperial College London)
Dr Silvia Acosta Guitierrez
CwCUK PDRF & Comput.&Theory lead
(London)
Silvia is a computational physicist working on the design od phenotypic medicine
B.Sci iin Physics
M.Sci Physics
(University of La Laguna. Tenerife (Spain))
Ph'D in Physics
(University of Cagliari)
Dr Virginia Gouveia
SomaServe Scientist & NanoImmunology lead
(Cambridge)
Virginia is the Formulation specialist in SomaServe ltd
B.Eng in Bioengineering
M.Eng in Biomedical Engineering
(UoPorto)
Ph'D in Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Dr Rui Pereira
AIRC iCARE fellow
(Barcelona)
Rui is a AIRC-iCARE2 research Fellow working on the development of novel brain tumour models
B.Sci in Applied Biology
M.Sc on Processing and Characterization of Materials University of Minho (PT).
Ph'D in Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells
University of Minho (PT)./University of Genoa (IT)
Dr Yangwei Deng (邓扬威)
SomaServe Scientist
(Cambridge)
Yangwei (邓扬威) ia Post Doctoral Research Fellow sponsored under our ( EP/N026322/1) EPSRC project)
B.E. in Polymer Materials and Engineering
Ph.D. in Molecular Chemistry
Dr Catia Lopes Carvalho
ERC PDRF
(Barcelona)
Catia is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow sponsored under our ERC project.)
BSc in Pathology, Physiology and Thanatology
(School of Health -P.Porto)
PhD in Neuroscience
(UoPorto)
PhD STUDENTS
Safa Al-Madhi
Self-sponsored Student
(London)
Safa is working on the characterisation and development of polymersomes chemotactic behaviour
MSci in Pharmaceutical Chemistry
(Queen Mary University of London}
Chiara Cursi
AZ/EPSRC Student
(London)
Chiara is working on Precision cancer targeting by combinatorial low-affinity binding
BSc Molecular Biology
MSc in Molecular Biology
(UoPisa)
Cesare De Pace
DENSsolutions/EPSRC Student
(London)
Cesare is workin onLive cell Imaging using liquid-phase scanning transmission electron microscopy
Laurea in Pharmacy
(UoRoma Tor Vergata)
Miguel (Miko) Sipin
EPSRC Student
(London)
Miko is working on Development of Personalised Medicine for the Treatment of Brain Tumours
M.Sc. in Chemistry
(UoOxford)
Valentino Barbieri
EPSRC Student
(London)
Valentino is working on the Development of Bioinspired Phototactic nanorobots in collaboration with Dr Giorgio Volpe activematterlab.org
Laurea. in Materials and Nanotechnology Engineering
(Politecnico Milano)
Maryam Al-Ghandi
King Abdullah Sch. Student
(London)
Maryam is working on the study of biodegradation of polymersomes and micelles
BSc in Chemistry
MSc in Analytical and Forensic chemistry
(UoHull)
Barbara Ibarzo Yus
EPSRC Student
(London)
Barbara is working on Polymersomes for cancer immune-therapy applications.
B.Sc. in Biotechnology
(UoZaragoza)
MSc Genetics and Cell Biology
(Coputense Madrid)
Joseph Buckley
ERC Student
(London)
Joe is working on the Theory and Simulation of Phenotypic Targeting and Super Selectivity .
MSci in Chemistry with Mathematics
(University College London)
MRes in Fluid Dynamics Across Scales
(Imperial College London)
Gabriel Ing
Welcome Trust Student
(London)
Gabriel is working on Liquid phase transmission electron microscopy of RNA polymerase collaboration with the Prof Finn Werner labs
BSc in Biochemistry
Imperial College London
Junyang Chen
(陈君洋)
Self-sponsored student
(London)
Junyang is working on the Development of soft random laser for biosensing in collaboration with Ricardo Sapienza at Imperial College London
B.Sci Biology
Anhui University
MSci Cell Biology
The University of Manchester
Jiangqi Feng
(冯江琪)
Self-sponsred Student
(London)
Jangqi is working on the mechanism and therapy of BBB inflammation
B.Eng. Biopharmaceutics
(Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine)
MSc in Pharmaceutics
(University College London)
Melis Pisiren
BBSRC/AZ Student
(London)
Melis is working on the study of macromolecular transport across the blood-brain barrier in collaboration with Astrazeneca
BSci. in Genetics
(UoGlasgow)
MRes. Neuromuscular Diseases
(University College London)
Barbara Borges
ERC Student
(Barcelona)
Barbara is working on the study of active transport in reactive vesicles
BEng Chemical Engineering
MEng Mechanical Engineering (Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG)
MSci Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
(KU Leuven & University of Barcelona)
Lara Aiassa
ERC Student
(Barcelona)
Lara is working on the study of the pathophysiology of Tuberculosis in order to decipher the host-pathogens interactions d in collaboration with Prof. Loris Rizzello.
B.Eng Biomedical Engineering
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
M.Sci in Bionanotechnology
(Politecnico di Torino)
MASTER, VISITING, AND UG STUDENTS
William Wood UCL MSc in Chemical Research (London)
Outputs
Selected publications
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X. Tian, D. Moreira-Leite, E. Scarpa, S. Nyberg, G. Fullstone, J. Forth, D. Lourenco-Matias, A. Apriceno, A. Poma, A. Duro-Castano, M. Vuyyuru, L. Harker-Kirschneck, A. Saric, Z.Zhang, P. Xiang, B. Fang, Y. Tian, L. Luo, L. Rizzello, G. Battaglia* On the shuttling across the blood-brain barrier via tubules formation: mechanism and cargo avidity bias Science Adv. 2020, 6 (48), eabc4397
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I. Williams*, S. Lee, A. Apriceno,R. P. Sear, G. Battaglia* Diffusioosmotic and convective flows induced by a non-electrolyte concentration gradient Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2020, 17, 25263-25271
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M. Liu, A. Apriceno, M .Sipin, E. Scarpa, L. Rodriguez-Arco, A. Poma, G. Marchello, G. Battaglia*, S. Angioletti-Uberti* Combinatorial entropy behaviour leads to range selective binding in lig- and receptor interactions Nature Comm. 2020 11, 4836
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X. Tian , C. De Pace, L. Ruiz-Perez, D. Chen, R. Su, M. Zhang, R. Zhang, Q. Zhang, Q. Wang, H. Zhou, J. Wu, Z. Zhang*, Y. Tian*, and G. Battaglia* A Cyclometalated Iridium (III) Complex as a Microtubule Probe for Correlative Super-Resolution Fluorescence and Electron Microscopy Adv. Mater., 2020, 32, 2003901
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F. Fenaroli, J. D. Robertson, V. Gouveia, C. Di Guglielmo, C. De Pace, E. Scarpa, P. M Elks, D. Evangelopoulos, J. Ortiz Canseco, S. Yona, H. M Marriott, D. H Dockrell, S. Foster, T. McHugh, S. A Renshaw, J. Samitier, G. Battaglia* and L. Rizzello* Polymersomes Eradicating Intracellular Bacteria ACS Nano 2020, 14, 7, 8287–8298
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X. Tian, S. Angioletti-Uberti, G. Battaglia* On the design of precision nanomedicines. Science Adv. 2020, 6, 4 , eaat0919
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Y. Zhu, A. Poma, L. Rizzello, V. Goueveia, L. Ruiz-Perez, G. Battaglia*,and C.K. Williams* Metabolic active fully hydrolysable polymersomes Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 8, 4581 –4586
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A. Joseph, C .Contini, D. Cecchin, S. Nyberg, L .Ruiz-Perez, J. Gaitzsch, G. Fullstone, J. Azizi, J. Preston, G. Volpe, G. Battaglia* Chemotactic synthetic vesicles: design and applications in blood brain barrier crossing Science Adv., 2017, 3, 8, e1700362
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L. Messager, J. Kim, J. Burns, D. Cecchin, J. Hindley, J. Gaitzsch, G. Battaglia*, S. Howorka* Biomimetic nanoreactors composed of polymersomes, membrane spanning DNA nanopores, and encapsulated enzymes Angew. Chem. Int. Ed, 2016, 37, 11272-11275
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L. Ruiz Perez, L. Messager, J. Gaitzsch, A. Joseph, L. Sutto, F. L. Gervasio and G. Battaglia* Molecular engineering of polymersome surface topology Science Adv. 2016, e1500948
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P. Viswanathan, M. Ondeck, S. Chirasatitsin, K. Nghamkham, D. Cecchin, G. C. Reilly, A. J. Engler* and G. Battaglia* 3D Surface Topology Guides Stem Cell Adhesion and Differentiation Biomaterials 2015, 52, 140–147
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J. D. Robertson ,G. Yealland, M. Avila-Olias, L. Chierico, O. Bandman, S. A. Renshaw, G. Battaglia* pH sensitive tubular polymersomes: formation and applications in cellular delivery ACS Nano, 2014, 8, 4650–4661
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A. Blanazs, J. Madsen, G. Battaglia*, A. J. Ryan* and S. P. Armes* Mechanistic Insights For Block Copolymers Morphologies: How Do Worms Form Vesicles? J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011 133 (41), 16581–16587
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M. R. Gill, J. Garcia-Lara, S. J. Foster, C. Smythe, G. Battaglia* and J. A. Thomas* A Ruthenium(II) Polypyridyl Complex for Direct Imaging of DNA Structure in Living Cells Nature Chem. 2009, 1, 662 - 667
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H. Lomas, I. Canton, S. MacNeil, J. Du, S.P. Armes, A.J. Ryan, A.L. Lewis and G. Battaglia* Biomimetic pH Sensitive Polymersomes for Efficient DNA Encapsulation and Delivery, Adv. Mater. 2007, 19, 4238–4243
