Alberto SAIANI profile

Alberto graduated from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France with a MSc in Soft Condensed Matter Physics and subsequently did a PhD in Polymer Physics at the same University. Following his PhD he held several post-doctoral positions in Japan, at Osaka University for which he was awarded a Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship, in the UK, at imperial College London and in Belgium, at Huntsman Polyurethanes. In 2000 he was appointed lecturer at the University Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France before joining in 2002 the Department of Materials at the University of Manchester where he -established the Polymers & Peptides Research Group (www.polymersandpeptides.co.uk) which is currently based at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB). His research work spans a wide area of experimental polymer and biopolymer science and focuses on understanding the chemical architecture - thermodynamic - structure - physical property correlations in complex polymeric systems, encompassing a variety of synthetic and biological materials. His work includes fundamental, industrial, and translational research. In 2013 he was awarded a 5-year research fellowship by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC, UK) to pursue his work on the development of a technological platform for the design of self-assembled peptide-based biomaterials for a broad range of biomedical. In 2014 this work led him to co-found a start-up company, Manchester BIOGEL, which for almost 10 years developed and commercialised advanced gel-based combination products for the life science and biomedical sector. In 2023 the PeptiGels® technology was sold to Cell Guidance Systems (www.cellgs.com). In 2016 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In November 2022, after 20 years in the Department of Materials, Alberto joined the Division of Pharmacy and Optometry in Manchester to pursue translational projects and moving his technology from the lab to the clinic.

Biomaterials, Hydrogels, Cell niches, Scaffolds, Peptides, Self-assembly, Polymers, Elastomers, Drug delivery, Tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting

http://www.polymersandpeptides.co.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5504-8306