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Chemistry Perrier Group

Current Members

Professor Sébastien Perrier

Sebastien 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 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 Edward Mansfield
Edward Mansfield Ed graduated from the University of Kent, Canterbury with a BSc in Biochemistry, and then moved on to the University of Surrey to study an MSc in Toxicology, with a key focus on nanoparticle toxicity. During this time, he collaborated with the Public Health England looking at the characterisation and in vitro toxicity of TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles, which are used in sun-cream formulations. He then moved on to complete his PhD at the University of Reading under the supervision of Prof. Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy, looking at the diffusion of functionalised nanomaterials in different environments; the goal being to develop a range of novel mucus-penetrating nanoparticles for oral drug delivery. As of October 2016, he joined Prof. Sébastien Perrier’s research group as a post-doc, looking at elucidating the mechanisms of self-assembly for cyclic peptide nanotubes, using a combination of scattering techniques (light, X-ray and neutron), as well as isothermal titration calirimitry. His research interests focus on the investigation of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials at the biological interface for drug delivery applications. E-mail:e dot mansfield dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6033-6783
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Dr Raoul Peltier
Raoul Peltier Raoul Peltier obtained his M.Sc in 2007, at the University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse (France). He then completed his PhD at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), working on the synthesis of glycopeptides and phosphopeptides as nanoparticle templating agents. In 2011, he started a three years postdoctoral fellow position at the EPFL (Switzerland), under a Marie Curie Fellowship Scheme, to work on the use of polymer-peptide conjugates for targeted drug delivery. In 2015, he moved to City University of HK (Hong Kong) to work on stimuli-responsive peptide hydrogels. Raoul joined the Perrier group in 2016 to study the biomedical applications of cyclic-peptide polymer conjugates and multiblock co-polymers.

Dr Joaquin Sanchis-Martinez
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 in 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 in the application of functionalized tubular structures as carriers for drug-delivery to selective tissues or biological compartments in the human body.
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Dr Carlos Sanchez-Cano
Carlos_Sanchez Carlos Sanchez-Cano graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Granada (Spain) and obtained his PhD in Bioinorganic Chemistry in 2009 in the group of Prof. Michael J. Hannon in the University of Warwick. After his doctoral degree, he joined the Department of Physics of the University of Oxford as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Andrew J. Turberfield, focusing on DNA and protein nanotechnology. In 2013, he started to study the intracellular behaviour and mode of action of a series of promising Os, Ir and Ru organometallic anticancer drug candidates at the Sadler’s Lab in the Chemistry Department of the University of Warwick. In 2015 he joined the group of Prof. Sébastien Perrier as a Research Fellow. His research interest focuses in the application of polymeric nanoparticles as carriers for the drug-delivery of metal-based drugs in the human body.

Dr Qiao Song
Qiao_Song Qiao Song obtained his bachelor degree from the Department of Chemical Engineering in Tsinghua University (China) in 2012. In the same year, he started his PhD research in the Department of Chemistry in the same university, under the supervision of Prof Xi Zhang, working on the fabrication of supramolecular polymers and polymeric materials based on supramonomer, as well as supramolecular radicals. After he obtained his PhD in 2017, Qiao joined the Perrier group as a postdoctoral research fellow to study the self-assembling behaviour and biomedical application of cyclic peptide – polymer conjugates.

Dr Jie Yang
Jie_Yang Jie Yang received his Bachelor of Applied Chemistry from Hefei University of Technology (China) in 2012. Then he joined the supramolecular chemistry research group at Zhejiang University (China) and obtained his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Feihe Huang, working on the construction of functional supramolecular amphiphiles and novel supramolecular polymeric materials. In 2017, Jie started a two years postdoctoral fellow position in Prof. Sébastien Perrier’s research group at the University of Warwick, under a Marie Curie Fellowship Scheme, to study the stimuli responsive tubular supramolecular polymer brushes aiming for biomedical applications.

Postgraduate researchers

Caroline Bray
Caroline Bray Caroline completed her bachelor of chemistry in 2012 at Pierre et Marie Curie University (Paris-France). After that, she completed her MSc of polymer materials in 2014 still at Pierre et Marie Curie University. Her first year master project was carried out at Marseille University (Marseille-France) in Laboratoire de Chimie Organic et Polymere de Specialite (CROPS) headed by D. Gigmes director of research at the CNRS and was co-supervised by Dr. S. Maria. The subject was about Nitroxide-Mediated Polymerisation. During her second year of master she undertook her project at the Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymeres (University Pierre et Marie Curie-France) under the supervision of Pr. P. Guegan and the co-supervision of the Dr. N. Illy. The subject was about anionic polymerization in biomedical field. She has recently started her PhD in October 2014 at University of Warwick (Warwickshire-United-Kingdom) with the supervision of Pr. S. Perrier. The project is sponsored by Lubrizol and deals about RAFT polymerization in aqueous media.
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Fannie Burgevin
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.
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Sean Ellacott
Sean Ellacott Sean completed his MSc in Chemistry in 2016 at Chimie ParisTech with a specialization in Medicinal chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy of Université Paris Descartes (France). His first research project was dealing with the synthesis of reducible polymeric structures for vaccine delivery. He carried it out at the CSIRO in Melbourne (Australia), under the supervision of Dr. Almar Postma. He then had the opportunity to do research at the Servier laboratories in Croissy-sur-Seine (France) on the synthesis of an anti-cancer drug. He recently started his PhD at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier, where he is working on the design of cyclic peptide-polymer nanotubes for drug delivery purposes.
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Thomas Floyd
Thomas Floyd Thomas graduated from the University of Warwick in 2016, with a first-class 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.
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Pratik Gurnani

Pratik Gurnani Pratik completed his MChem at the University of Warwick in 2014. His Masters project focussed on the synthesis and characterisation of asymmetric bimetallic helicates under the supervision of Prof. Peter Scott. Pratik was the recipient of the Andrew McCamley Prize for Outstanding Year 4 Project Performance in July 2014. In September 2014, he started his PhD at the same institution under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier, currently investigating polymers as a drug delivery vector to cancer cells.
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Satu Häkkinen
Satu Hakkinen 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.
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Andrew Kerr
Andrew Kerr Andrew completed his MChem at the University of York in 2014. His Masters Research project was carried out at Bayer Cropscience in Frankfurt, Germany under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Lindell. He investigated cycloaddition chemistry in the synthesis of herbicides. In March 2015 he began his PhD at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier. His project is sponsored by Lubrizol and investigates the synthesis of brush polymers.
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Agnes Kuroki
Agnes Kuroki Agnes completed her MSc at Chimie ParisTech in 2015. For her Masters project, she investigated the synthesis and the self-assembly of amphiphilic copolymers for drug delivery under the supervision of Dr. Paul Wilson and Prof. Sebastien Perrier. She started her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sebastien Perrier in October 2015 and her project focuses on antimicrobial peptides mimicking polymers in collaboration with the CSIRO.
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Andrew Lunn

Andrew Lunn Andrew started his undergraduate degree in 2008 at the Liverpool School of Pharmacy (LJMU), graduating with a 1st class degree in Pharmacy (MPharm) in 2012. His Master’s thesis was completed under the supervision of Dr Elsie Gaskell and was on the subject of antibiotic binding and release on clay minerals for use in wound care. He then went on to complete his professional qualification as a pharmacist at Imperial College Hospital, London, qualifying in 2013. After a short period practicing as a pharmacist, in 2014 he came to the University of Warwick to study for a postgraduate MSc in chemistry with scientific writing, completing a research project into the synthesis of glyco-polymer particles and graduating with distinction. He is now continuing his wok into glyco-polymer particles and their pharmaceutical applications at the University of Warwick, under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier.
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Guillaume Moriceau

Guillaume Moriceau Guillaume completed a MSc in Chemistry at the University of Rennes (France – 2009) and then he specialized in nanotechnology for biomedical applications by undertaking a second MSc in “Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Engineering” at the University of Lyon (France - 2012). His first master research project carried out at the University of Rennes (CNRS) focused on the synthesis and characterization of new amphiphilic copolyester for nanoparticles formation and was co-supervised by Dr S. Guillaume and Dr. S. Cammas-Marion. For his second MSc, he conducted his research project at the Galien Institute at Paris-Sud XI University (CNRS) under the supervision of Pr. G. Ponchel and he investigated the complement system activation by functionalized polypeptides composite nanoparticles. In October 2014, he started his PhD at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier. His project is sponsored by the company Lubrizol and focused on RAFT polymerization for controlled polymer architectures.
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Julia Rho
Julia Rho Julia completed her MChem at University of Warwick in 2015. Her masters project, under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier, looks at the further modification of Janus cyclic peptides that have been previously studied in the Perrier group. She also studied under Professor Hongyu Chen at Nanyang Technological University for her international placement in 2014. The project focussed on optoelectronic organic charge transfer complexes that form uniform microtubes.In September 2015, Julia began her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier focussing her research on cyclic peptide polymer conjugates.
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Robert Richardson
Robert Richardson Robert graduated with a 1st class degree in Chemistry (Mchem) at the University of Warwick in 2017. His Master’s thesis, under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier, focused on the preparation of pH responsive polymer nanoparticles for targeted drug release. Robert began his PhD under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier focusing on RAFT emulsion polymerisation.
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Joji Tanaka
Joji Tanaka Joji completed his undergraduate degree in Chemical Biology (MChem) in 2013 at University of Warwick, his final year project involved polymer-protein conjugation supervised by Dave Haddleton. He then joined MOAC-DTC and completed MSc in Mathematical Biology and Biophysical Chemistry in 2014. His final MSc project involved the synthesis of glycopolymers and binding assay with lectins involved in immunological functions. The MSc project was supervised by Daniel Mitchell (WMS) and Dave Haddleton. Continuing the investigation carried out in the MSc for his PhD, he is now also part of Perrier group and Warwick-Monash alliance, and has two additional supervisors in his team: Paul Wilson and Sébastien Perrier.
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MChem Researchers

Lizzie Eyre
Lizzie Eyre Lizzie is studying for a degree in chemistry (Mchem) at the University of Warwick and is completing her Mchem project under the supervision of Sébastien Perrier focussing on cyclic peptides for targeted drug release. She had previously completed the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) in 2016 under the supervision of Matthew Gibson, researching and learning more about RAFT polymerisation.
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Órla Kevane
Órla Kevane Órla is studying for her MChem and will be pursuing a project on cyclic peptide hydrogels. She has previously undertaken a URSS in the O’Reilly group on the kinetics of emulsion polymerisation. Last year, she studied in the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia for her international placement under Prof. Andrea Cornia. The project focused on synthetic routes to photoactive single molecule magnets.
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Josh Parkin
Josh Parkin Josh is an MChem student at the University of Warwick working under the supervision of Prof Sébastien Perrier, his masters project focuses on the synthesis of star polymers as antimicrobial peptide mimics. In 2016 he completed his URSS summer project under the supervision of Prof Matthew Gibson, researching low volume RAFT polymerisation with enzyme degassing. In 2017 he completed a research project in Australia as part of his 3rd year at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, under the supervision of Dr Kristian Kempe. His project focused on the synthesis of poly(2-oxazoline) and poly(2-oxazine) based comb polymers for the stabilisation of iron oxide nanoparticles.
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Master Researchers

Jane Hu
jane hu Jane Hu completed her bachelor degree from the Department of Material Chemistry in Taiwan Chung Yuan Christian University in 2016. Then she started her MSc in Polymer Chemistry in University of Warwick in 2017. For master project, under the supervision of Prof Sébastien Perrier, she is trying to synthesize an enzyme-responsive nanogel by using polyoxazoline derivatives with peptide-crosslinkers.
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Maria Kariuki
maria kariuki Maria graduated from Keele University with a BSc in Forensic science. There she was involved in a research project whereby metabonomics was applied to estimate post-mortem intervals via the measurement of phosphorous and sulphur concentrations in the liver. She is currently pursuing her MSc in Analytical Sciences at the University of Warwick. She has joined Sebastien’s team to undertake a project aimed at the systematic characterisation of cyclic peptides-polymer conjugates self-assemblies. A universal technique for their analysis shall be accessed and subsequently optimal experimental conditions shall be determined.
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Megan Sambrook
Megan Sambrook Megan is a Masters student on the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, MRC funded Doctoral Training Partnership and is completing a project in Professor Sébastien Perrier’s research group. She is currently working on synthesising cyclic peptide nanotubes for biomedical applications. She graduated from the University of Surrey with a first class degree in Biomedical Science (BSc). During this time, she spent a year working at Cornell University, New York, USA, in the lab of Dr Arleen Rifkind and also worked part time as a Clinical Research Assistant at the Surrey Clinical Research Centre.
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Tang Yuying
Tang Yuying Tang has completed her bachelor of science degree from Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Department of Xiamen University in China in June, 2017. Then she has been doing her master of science degree of Polymer Chemistry in University of Warwick until September, 2018. Now she is doing her personal project about antimicrobial peptide in professor Sebastien’s group.
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Undergraduate researchers

Clement Desvaux
Clement Desvaux Clement is a visiting student at the University of Warwick, undertaking an internship as part of his master’s degree. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Chimie Montpellier in General Chemistry. He conducted a research project on block copolymers for tissue engineering supervised by Dr. Vincent Darcos. His internship project is about functionnalisation of cyclic peptide polymers for targeted drug release under supervision of Prof. Sebastien Perrier.
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Postdoctoral Researchers

Postgraduate Researchers

MChem Researchers

Masters Researchers

Undergraduate Researchers