Molecular Bioengineering for Neuroscience

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• Professor Giuseppe Battaglia, The Krebs Institute, The Centre for Membrane Interactions and Dynamics,& Department of Biomedical Science, University of Sheffield
• Wednesday 09 May 2012, 12:00-13:00
• Brain Repair Centre, Forvie Site, Robinson Way.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Shannon Tinley-Browne.

In the last years we have developed a series of molecular and macromolecular tools that allows us to design nano-strucutred materials that have astonishing similarities with biological structures. These are designed with several purposes: from getting macromolecules delivered within live cells and through other biological barriers such as the Blood Brain Barrier and the Blood Cerebral Fluid Barrier to support stem cells and control their differentiation. I will discuss how water-bourne supramolecular interactions such as hydrophobic forces, hydrogen bonding, polymer/polymer phase separation can be exploited to engineer functional nanomaterials with exquisite control of the size, shape, surface topology, and mechanical properties. I will show how these can be made so to mimic natural virus ability to get across biological barriers with important consequences on traditional and new therapies. I will present our ongoing work in collaboration with Neurologists to design particles to deliver within the central nervous system. Finally I will discuss how the same molecular engineering can be applied to replicate the structural and functional properties of extra cellular matrix for controlling cell adhesion and differentiation.

Prof Giuseppe Battaglia holds the Chair in Synthetic Biology in the department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield. Prof Battaglia graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Palermo and obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Sheffield. He was appointed to a Lectureship straight after his PhD with the Department of Materials Sci. and Engineering at Sheffield and in 2009 relocated to the Department of Biomedical Science where he was promoted to a senior lectureship in 2010 and to a personal chair in 2011. He’s also associated with the Krebs Institute, and he is founder member of the Sheffield Centre for Membrane Iterations and Dynamics, and the Sheffield Cancer Research Centre. Prof Battaglia is interested in research problems that require a considerable understanding of biology to tackle clinical challenges via the development of new physical tools. He tackles this by studying the specific design rules behind inter/intra molecular interactions and self-assembly of soft matter systems, often taking inspiration from biological systems such as cells and viruses. These are subsequently translated into the engineering of nanostructured biomaterials. This involves the detailed biological and pharmacological evaluation of these novel functional materials for applications that range from drug and gene delivery, diagnostic, to cell and tissue engineering. Prof Battaglia has published more than 60 papers and presented more than 30 invited and keynote presentations at several international meetings. He is the recipient of the Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator award (jointly with Prof A Engler-UCSD) (2009), the University of Sheffield Exceptional Contribution award (2009 and 2010), the 2011 PPG /DPOLY Polymer Exchange Lecture: awarded by American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, The 2011 GSK Emerging Scientist Award, and the 2011 ERC Starting Grant Award.

Selected publications: Gaitzsch et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012 in the press; LoPresti et al. ACS Nano 2011, 5 (3),1775–1784; Murdoch et al. Nanomedicine 2010, 5, 1025-1036; Gill et al. Nature Chem. 2009 1, 662 – 667; Howse et al. Nature Mater. 2009, 8, 507 – 511; Lomas et al. Adv. Mater. 2007, 19, 4238–4243; Battaglia et al. Nature Mater. 2005, 4, 869–876

This talk is part of the BRC Seminar Series series.

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