Current Members

Professor Sébastien Perrier

Sébastien graduated with his PhD in 2002 from the University of Warwick, England, in polymer chemistry. After one year as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australia, he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Leeds, UK. In October 2007, he moved to the University of Sydney and was appointed as director of the Key Centre for Polymers & Colloids. Sébastien leads a team of 15-20 researchers working on the design of a wide range of state-of-the-art functional polymeric materials by careful manipulation of their molecular structure. He is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Soft Matter, Macromolecules, European Polymer Journal and Polymer Chemistry, a member of the RACI Polymer Division executive committee (2011 Chair), and was appointed on the Australian Research Council College of Experts in 2011. Awards include the Macro Group UK Young Researcher Award (2006), the Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2009), the Rennie Memorial Medal (2009), the David Sangster Polymer Science and Technology Award (2009), the Le Fèvre Memorial Prize (2013) and the RS Wolfson Award (2014).

Postdoctoral researchers

Dr Julia Rho

Julia Rho graduated in Chemistry from the University of Warwick with an MChem in 2015. During her undergraduate studies, she worked under the supervision of Prof. Rachel O’Reilly and undertook an international placement at the Nanyang Technological University in the group of Prof. Hongyu Chen. She went on to obtain her PhD in the Perrier group in 2019, which focused on the dynamic behaviour of supramolecular cyclic peptide-polymer nanotubes. In 2019 she joined the Butler Polymer Research Laboratory at the University of Florida as a post-doctoral researcher under the supervision of Prof. Brent Sumerlin. During this time, she worked on several projects in the field of photoinifertor polymerisation, complex coacervates, and cyclic polymers. In 2021, rejoin the Perrier group as a post-doctoral researcher to work with Syngenta on RNA delivery.

Dr Alexia Hapeshi

Alexia obtained a BA (Hons) and MSci in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and then completed her PhD in 2013 in the lab of Jose Vasquez-Boland at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focused on the virulence mechanisms of the bacterial pathogen Rhodococcus equi, studying the interaction between the host and the pathogen and working towards vaccine development. In 2014 she moved to the University of Warwick to work as a Research Fellow in Nick Waterfield’s group where she continued studying the basis of the evolution of pathogenesis in bacteria. Her research then shifted to the study of the mechanisms of action of natural and synthetic antimicrobial compounds as well as the use of bacterial systems for drug delivery. In 2019 she joined Prof Sébastien Perrier’s group to work on the biological applications of synthetic polymers.

Dr Jeaniffer Yap

Jeaniffer obtained her bachelor’s degree in industrial chemistry (BEng, Hons) at the University of South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney Australia. She then worked as a research assistant at Prof. Martina Stenzel’s group in the School of Chemistry at UNSW to investigate the biodistribution and efficacy of folate-labelled nanoparticle in delivering chemotherapy drug in mice. In 2016, she was awarded the Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA) scholarship to continue her study as a PhD student in the same group. Her PhD work focuses on the development and in-vitro studies of light-responsive nanoparticles as a gated release mechanism for chemotherapy drugs. She uses a novel photoswitch called Donor-Acceptor Stenhouse Adducts (DASA) that responds to visible and NIR light. After finishing her PhD in 2020 she worked on a microplastic research project with Dr. Jennifer Matthews at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in collaboration with UNSW Sustainable Materials Research & Technology (SMaRT) Centre. In this project, she developed a material that can adsorb microplastic particles from the seawater which led to a scale-up funding application opportunity. She finally joins Prof. Sébastien Perrier’s group at the University of Warwick in 2021 to work on the development of tuberculosis treatment using drug-loaded nanoparticles.

Dr Joaquin Sanchis-Martinez

Joaquin Sanchis-Martinez graduated in Chemistry from the University of Valencia (Spain) and obtained his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2005 in the group of Prof. Ana Costero in the same University. After his doctoral degree, he held a contract research position at BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany). In 2006, he joined Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Mülheim and der Ruhr, Germany) as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Manfred Reetz, focusing on Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering by directed evolution. In 2009, he started developing polymer-drug conjugate nanomedicines with application in the treatment of cancer at the Prof. Maria Vicent’s Polymer Therapeutics Lab in the Biomedical Research Center Principe Felipe (CIPF) in Valencia (Spain). In the same year, he visited Prof. Carlos Barbas III in The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA, US) for a 3-month training period in the synthesis and characterization of Zinc Fingers. In 2011, he combined his position at CIPF with a part-time associate lecturer appointment at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Valencia. In 2014 he joined the group of Prof. Sébastien Perrier as a Research Fellow and is now involved in the University of Warwick – Monash University alliance, leading Prof. Perrier’s research team in Melbourne. His research interest focuses on the application of functionalized tubular structures as carriers for drug-delivery to selective tissues or biological compartments in the human body.

Postgraduate researchers

Year Four

Fannie Burgevin

Fannie completed her MSc at CPE Lyon and université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in 2017. Specialized in polymer chemistry and materials, she did her master project at c2p2 under the supervision of Dr Murie Lansalot and Franck D'Agosto and investigated RAFT polymerization of vinyl acetate and application to polymerization-induced self-assembly. In October 2017 she started her PhD at University of Warwick under the supervision of Prof. Sebastien Perrier, investigating functional polymers for RNA delivery.

Thomas Floyd

Thomas graduated from the University of Warwick in 2016, with a degree in Chemistry with Industrial Experience. His MChem project was carried out under the supervision of Professor Sébastien Perrier, where he investigated the synthesis of hyperstar polymers. During his undergraduate degree, Thomas also undertook research projects under the supervision of Professor Rachel O’Reilly (University of Warwick) and Professor Marcus Wilhelmsson (Chalmers University of Technology). After graduating, Thomas joined the company Interface Polymers, where he worked for a year developing the scale-up processes of a polyolefin block copolymer synthesis. Thomas’ PhD will focus on the development of complex architectures of poly(2-oxazoline)-co-poly(ethylenimine) for use in non-viral gene transfection.

Satu Häkkinen

Satu graduated with MSc in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Helsinki in November 2017. She carried out her Master’s project under the supervision of Professor Heikki Tenhu, while also working as a research assistant in the Polymers and Colloids research group. The subject of her thesis was polymerization-induced self-assembly via RAFT aqueous emulsion polymerization, and the project involved the development and investigation of a new PISA formulation. In January 2018, she began her PhD in the Perrier group, studying the synthesis and properties of brush polymers for Lubrizol.

Year Three

Ramon Garcia Maset

Ramon Garcia Maset completed his bachelor degree in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Valencia, Spain. He performed additional internships while attending to his degree in the Pharmacodynamics and Microbiology departments. He decided to improve his knowledge of next-generation sequencing and microbiology infection so he did an internship at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, under the supervision of the Dr Justin O'Grady (Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Medical School UEA) and Professor John Wain, and he worked on a project in collaboration with Grifols and the University of East Anglia to develop a point of care diagnose method to reduce the diagnose turnaround time of patients suffering from sepsis, pneumonia and urinary tract infections. He coursed IBR master funded by the MRC DTP at Warwick University where he widely increased his interdisciplinary knowledge about biosciences. He recently started his PhD under the supervision of Professor Sebastien Perrier and Dr Freya Harrison, an interdisciplinary approach in polymer chemistry and microbiology to exploit antimicrobial agents against biofilms.

Sophie Hill

Sophie graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry (MChem) in 2018. Her Master's project was completed under the supervision of Dr Simon Webb and investigated self-assembly of sulphur based lipids for the examination of prebiotic evolutionary concepts. She recently started her PhD under the supervision of Professor Sebastien Perrier on a collaborative project with AstraZeneca, focusing on cyclic peptide-polymer conjugates and their applications for drug delivery.

Maria Kariuki

Having completed a Forensic Science BSc degree at Keele University, Maria joined the University of Warwick in 2017 to pursue an MSc in Analytical Sciences. Under the supervision of Sebastien Perrier, she started her research project aimed at systematically characterising self-assembled cyclic peptide-polymer conjugates. Chromatographic and light scattering techniques were employed to monitor the effects of sample treatments on the stability of the conjugates. She then shortly after began her PhD (Oct 2018) where she will continue to focus on the characterisation of the conjugates using softer techniques (Field Flow Fractionation) so as to gain more information on their assembly mechanisms.

Year Two

Hannah Burnage

Hannah completed her BSc in Biochemistry at the University of Warwick in 2018. She then started the MAS CDT course and completed her Master’s in 2019. Her thesis research project was focused on using GPC to monitor polymerisation reactions, under the supervision of David Haddleton. In 2019 she began her PhD under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier making and characterising nanoparticles.

Zihe Cheng

Zihe Cheng obtained her Bachelor of Applied Chemistry from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (China) in 2017. In September 2018, she came to the University of Warwick to study for a postgraduate MSc in Polymer Chemistry. In April 2019, she did her Master’s project under the supervision of Professor Sebastien Perrier and Dr. Qiao Song on the self-assembling behaviour of cyclic peptide – polymer conjugates. In the same year, she starts her PhD research in the Perrier group, focusing on the amphiphilic cyclic peptide-polymer conjugates and their second self-assembly of tubisomes.

Vito Kontrimas

Vito graduated with MPharm degree at the Reading School of Pharmacy in 2016. His thesis focus was to investigate the in-vitro effect of carbon monoxide on Alzheimer’s disease. After graduation, Vito also completed his pharmacy pre-registration training at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, before joining MRC DTP in IBR course at the University of Warwick to pursue his academic interests. During the MRC DTP in IBR course, Vito has been involved in two mini-projects: 1) “pH-responsive polymeric nanoparticles for drug delivery” in Perrier’s group 2) “The impacts of daratumumab kinetics in Multiple Myeloma” supervised by Prof. Mike Chappell. Recently, Vito has joined the Perrier group as a PhD to work on the development of multifunctional polymeric drug delivery systems for penetrating the blood-brain barrier.

Year One

Zihe (Taki) Zhang

Zihe (Taki) Zhang got the BE in Nanjing Tech University. Then completed his Msc in September 2019 at the University of Warwick, the project was synthesizing of polyHIPEs. He started his PhD study in January 2020 in Perrier's group in nanoparticle team focusing on encapsulation of nanoparticles by RAFT polymerization.

Magda Przybyla

Magda completed her BSc at the University of Warwick in 2020. During her studies, she undertook a summer project in Perrier group working on 4-vinylbenzyl chloride macroinitiator for the synthesis of POx brushes. The following summer she joined Waterfield group at Warwick Medical School to work on reconstituting bacterial injection systems for use in drug delivery. In September 2020 Magda started her PhD under the supervision of prof. Sébastien Perrier, sponsored by Lubrizol. Magda’s project will focus on RAFT iniferter polymerisation.

Sophie Laroque

Sophie completed her bachelor and master degree in chemistry at Humboldt University. For her bachelor thesis, she investigated the triple helix formation of collagen mimetic peptides, under the supervision of Prof. Hans Boerner. Afterwards, she spent 6 months at Warwick University for a research internship as part of her master degree in the group of Sebastien Perrier, working on emulsion polymerisation and polymerisation-induced self-assembly to generate pH-responsive nanoparticles. Finally, for her master thesis, she worked under the supervision of Dr. Matthias Hartlieb and Prof. Alexander Boeker at Potsdam University and Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research on the synthesis of antimicrobial bottle brush polymers. In 2020 she started her PhD under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier and Katherine Locock (CSIRO), working on antimicrobial star polymers.

Ruth (JJ) Awodipe

JJ completed her bachelor degree in Biomedical Research at the University of Birmingham. During that time, she carried out a summer project and a final year project under the supervision of Dr Andrew Holmes and Dr Michelle Buckner respectively. She then joined the MRC DTP in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research (IBR) at the University of Warwick where she completed two mini-projects as part of her MSc. JJ has now started her PhD under the supervision of Professor Meera Unnikrishnan and Professor Sébastien Perrier. Her research focuses on characterising intracellular S. aureus and targeting the bacteria using polymers.

Meshari Alqarni

Meshari completed his MSc at the University of Warwick in 2020. He carried out his Master’s project under the supervision of Dr Remzi Becer which his thesis research project was focused on Single Chain Polymer Nanoparticles (SCNP). Recently, Meshari has joined the Perrier group as a PhD to work on encapsulation of nanoparticles by RAFT polymerization in non-polar solvent.

MChem Researchers

Billy Dyer

Billy is in his final year of an MChem at Warwick university investigating a novel synthesis route for Bottlebrush polymers using RAFT techniques, under the supervision of Satu Häkkinen and Seb Perrier. For his 3rd year, he undertook a year in industry with distance learning in the Netherlands, performing a feasibility study on recyclable polyamide carpet adhesives for DSM-Niaga

Visiting Researchers

Xiujun Cao

Xiujun Cao owned the master degree majoring in Analytical Chemistry from Fudan Univerisity in 2010. Since 2016, as the principal investigator, she performed the project ‘Identification of traditional Chinese Medicine Leech by capturing hirudin with magnetic immobilized enzyme’ (Award Number, 81603247. National Natural Science Foundation of China). The research focused on quantitative analysis and identification of direct thrombin inhibitors including hirudin, hirudin derivatives and hirudin analogues. Specifically, She focused on the synthesis of nanoparticles for specific extraction of natural anticoagulant peptides from blood sucking leeches. Since 2020, as a visitor in Prof. Sébastien Perrier’s group, she carried out the study of stability and potency of vaccine using different nanoparticles (e.g. polymer and liposome) as gene delivery.

Prof Sébastien Perrier

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr Julia Rho
Dr Alexia Hapeshi
Dr Jeaniffer Yap
Dr Joaquin Sanchis-Martinez

Postgraduate Researchers

Fannie Burgevin
Thomas Floyd
Satu Häkkinen
Ramon Garcia Maset
Sophie Hill
Maria Kariuki
Hannah Burnage
Zihe Cheng
Vito Kontrimas
Zihe (Taki) Zhang
Magda Przybyla
Sophie Laroque
Ruth (JJ) Awodipe
Meshari Alqarni

MChem Researchers

Billy Dyer

Visiting Researchers

Xiujun Cao