Biomaterials For Improving Human Health: Dr. Matthew I. Gibson.

For more information please email m.i.gibson@warwick.ac.uk

Research in the Gibson Group is focussed at the interface between Chemistry and the Medical Sciences. We seek to address the huge, emerging, medical problems of the 21st Century around regenerative medicine and infectious disease. We achieve this by combining modern synthetic polymer and carbohydrate chemistry with fundamental biochemical studies, all the way through to medical translation. Research projects can vary from 100 % small molecule synthesis, to 100 % biochemical analysis, dependant on the students and their background.

Facilities; Dedicated, brand new, Synthetic, Analytical and Biological Laboratories in the new MAS building.

The Gibson Group

The Gibson group typically has ~ 15 members, with backgrounds covering organic chemistry, biology and engineering, funded by a range of government and industry sources.

Recent Research Highlights

Public Interest and Outreach. Recent highlights from the group include a paper in Nature Communications, which was discussed on the BBC news, BBC radio, National Newspapers and several popular science magazines. All members of the group (including Masters students) are encouraged to participate in outreach activities, enhancing the public profile of science, especially with high-school age pupils.

Past MChem Projects. In the past 5 years, many Masters students (Warwick and International students) have passed through the lab, and they have featured as authors on 14 publications. 6 have stayed on to complete PhDs in the Group, and several others are completing PhDs elsewhere.

We also have unique facilities for biological testing of the newly made materials allowing projects to cover all stages from concept to utilisation.

POTENTIAL PROJECTS

The projects for 2015/2016 are NOT fixed. Each project is put together based on discussions with Dr. Gibson to ensure the right training and so students have ownership of the work. Example areas are listed below.

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SMART MATERIALS FOR BIOLOGICAL INTEGRATION

Polymeric and nanoparticle drug-delivery systems are revolutionising modern healthcare: These reduce drug toxicity, improve solubility and decrease excretion rates, but the ability to target specific organs is still a huge challenge. To address this, we are developing polymer and nanoparticle systems, which are stable in the blood stream, but can interact with specific receptors on diseased cells to promote cell uptake. We have extended this concept to make the material specifically degrade inside cells, to reduce long term toxicity and deliver the drug only to its intended target.

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PATHOGEN BIOSENSORS

Antibiotics were arguably the greatest medical intervention of the 20th Century, but in the past decade resistance has risen, in part due to inappropriate administration. This is becoming even more of a problem in the developing world. To combat this, we are developing low-cost point of care diagnostics that are designed to enable rapid identification of bacterial or vial infections. This is achieving by incorporating carbohydrates on the surface of nanoparticles that give rise to a colour change (see figure) when they bind the surface of pathogens. Recent work has particularly focused on cholera and E. coli detection.

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DESIGN AND APPLICATION OF ANTIFREEZE PROTEIN MIMICS FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

Nature has evolved a huge range of protective mechanisms which allows life to flourish in extreme environments ranging from ocean vents (very hot!) to the Antarctic Water (very cold!). We are taking inspiration from antifreeze proteins that allow fish to survive in polar oceans to develop novel agents (polymers and small molecules) which can improve the preservation of cells, tissue and organs. We have developed several new classes of biomimetic polymers and also applied these to cryopreserve donated blood and we are also looking at stem cell preservation

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GLYCAN MIMETIC MATERIALS

In addition to DNA and proteins, carbohydrates are the some of the most important information-carrying molecules in nature. Whilst proteomics and genomics allows us to predict, measure and analyse protein and gene function, carbohydrates (termed glycans) are not predicted by the genome, as these are a post-translational modification. Also, the analytical tools to probe carbohydrate structure and function are still missing. Despite these challenges, glycans mediate a huge range of processes from deciding your blood type to enabling virus and bacteria to invade your cells. We seek to design synthetic polymers with the precise architecture (shape) associated with Natural glycans, but with the benefits of being multivalent (i.e. polymers are big!) and enabling incorporation into nanostructures. We are seeking to both synthesise these, and measure their biophysical interactions.

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ICE NUCLEATION MECHANISMS AND MEASUREMENTS

Ice crystal growth is important (see above in Nature and in Cryopreservation), but the process of ice formation (nucleation) is still under study. For example, ultra-pure water does not freeze until l~ -40 C…. This surprising observation is due to the energy barrier for nucleation being high, in the absence of impurities. Many organisms prevent, or promote, ice nucleation to enable their survival, or as part of host-invasion (such as bacteria on plants in cold climates). We are seeking to develop the tools to analyse this complex, and misunderstood phenomena and to investigate how synthetic materials (polymers and molecules) can prevent or promote it. This would have huge implications across biomedicine, but also engineering science.

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These only show the concepts: Speak to Dr. Gibson about specific projects, which can include organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, biochemistry, analytical or biophysics.

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