Keynote Speakers 2024

Helena Azevedo is an ERA Chair in Molecular Bioengineering at the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S, University of Porto, Portugal) where she leads the Molecular Biomaterials Group.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) since 2017 and was appointed Member of the Materials Chemistry Division Council (RSC) in 2021. In 2021 she also became Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Journal Peptide Science (Wiley) and has been a Member of the Advisory Board of the RSC journal Molecular Systems Design & Engineering since 2016.

Her work focuses on self-assembling biomaterial platforms for cell culture, drug delivery, regenerative medicine, and biosensing. She is author of >100 publications, including papers in Science, Nat Chem, Nat Comm, Adv Funct Mater, Nano Lett, Adv Health Mater, and has edited 3 books on natural-based biomaterials, self-assembling biomaterials and soft matter for biomedical applications.

Dr Melissa Rayner is a Lecturer and Principal Investigator at University College London. Her research involves taking a multi-disciplinary approach to develop therapies to promote nerve regeneration following injury or disease. Her work pioneered a new programme of research in the development of small molecule therapeutics for peripheral nerve injury and a patented drug embedded biomaterial for sustained local drug delivery. Using sophisticated 3D co-cultures and in vivo injury models Dr Rayner’s lab have identified a panel of agonists that have shown benefit in promoting regeneration and recovering function, and the lab are currently exploring their molecular and cellular mechanisms. Within the lab they are also optimising biomaterial formulations to improve the sustained release of multiple small molecules and working with clinicians to ensure that the biomaterials have suitable properties for use in the clinic. Another focus of the lab is the development of engineered models to study regenerative therapies on other aspects of nerve damage such as myelination, cell phenotypes, neural cell interactions and growth factor release.

Dr Rayner collaborates international and is on the board of the European Society for the Study of Peripheral Nerve Repair and Regeneration. She is well recognised within the field receiving the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) Robert Brown Early-Stage Investigator Award and being shortlisted for the Outstanding Pharmacy Early-Career Researcher Award (OPERA).

Dr Hadi Mirmalek-Sani started his research career with an undergraduate degree in cell biology before moving to the University of Southampton where he completed a PhD investigating the differences between adult and prenatal bone stem cells, which continued in a two-year postdoc. He followed this with a further postdoc at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, USA, developing soft tissue engineering methods and completing multiple first author publications. Switching to industry, Hadi completed a master’s degree in business & bioscience management in California before joining the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, London, in 2013 as a project manager. In 2018 he became Programme Manager for in-house gene delivery projects, and since 2021 has been Senior Programme Manager, overseeing Catapult’s wider portfolio of viral vector work. Hadi has held the Industrial Liaison position on the council of the UK’s Tissue and Cell Engineering Society since 2015 and delivers lectures in therapy commercialisation as part of the University of Manchester’s MRes in Tissue Engineering for Regenerative Medicine programme. Hadi has extensive experience of successful project delivery, portfolio and consortia management, and ATMP development, with partners such as UCL, KCL, Sartorius, Eppendorf, Cytiva, Charles River and Becton Dickinson.

Prof. Yan Yan Shery Huang is Professor of Bioengineering, leading the Biointerface Group at Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK; Associate Editor of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, and Bio-Design and Manufacturing. Shery completed her MEng degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Imperial College London, and PhD degree in Physics (Biological & Soft Systems) from University of Cambridge, UK.
Prof Huang’s research group focuses on multiple themes including: (i) sustainably augmented living matters; (ii) organ-on-a-chip and tissue engineering; and (iii) intertwining 3D printing and AI for affordable and ethical healthcare and clinical informatics. Prof Huang’s group aim to apply their scientific findings to exploring a new generation of tissue engineering constructs for personalised therapy, at affordable costs; and to provide new sustainable solutions for disease monitoring, drug testing, and better patient healthcare.