The aim of this project is to produce a cardiac patch capable of supporting and regenerating the myocardium following myocardial infarction (MI) using melt electrospinning writing (MEW) of Poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate- co-3-hydroxydecanoate), P(3HO-co-3HD), and alginate (MEW-PHA-Alg), two natural, sustainable and highly biocompatible polymers. Scalable production of the polymers required for bringing the patch to the clinic will also be addressed via co-production of the patch constituents in large-scale batch fermentations.
This project will be primarily supervised by Professor Ipsita Roy, Professor of Biomaterials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sheffield. She specialises in biomaterials produced by bacterial fermentation, i.e., natural polymers of bacterial origin. These include Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and alginate, which have been found to be highly biocompatible for cardiac applications. This project will also involve Professor Chris Denning from the University of Nottingham as the second supervisor, who specialises in Stem Cell Biology and is Director of the University of Nottingham Biodiscovery Institute. In addition, Dr. Daniel Stuckey, a British Heart Foundation Research Fellow at UCL, will be our collaborator.
The University of Sheffield has state of art research infrastructure required for this work including a 30L and 15L fermenter. Professor Roy’s lab also has the facilities required for downstream processing of the bacterial cells for polymer purification and structure determination. Her lab has a Melt electrospinning equipment and state of art cell culture facility. The Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield prioritises student welfare and support.
Applications can be submitted using this link https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/phd/apply/applying
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