Recent advances in neuronal and cardiac tissue engineering

James gave a keynote talk entitled Engineering nervous system tissue at the international symposium Recent advances in neuronal and cardiac tissue engineering: from lab to clinic on 13th June 2014 organised by the Doctoral School for Medicine & Life Sciences at Hasselt University, Belgium.

School talk: Café Sci at Northampton High School

In March James gave a talk entitled Repairing the body using tissue engineering and regenerative medicine as part of the Café Sci programme organised by students at Northampton High School. If you would like someone from the research group to talk at a science event organised by a school or other organisation please contact us.

PhD Success

Congratulations to Melanie Georgiou who successfully passed her PhD viva on 28th October 2013. Mel’s PhD thesis title is “Development of a tissue engineered implantable device for the surgical repair of the peripheral nervous system” and her work resulted in a number of publications and presentations as well as successful collaborations and an international award.

New Paper: Astrocyte response to stem cell therapies

The paper “A 3D in vitro model reveals differences in the astrocyte response elicited by potential stem cell therapies for CNS injury” was published in Regenerative Medicine this week. It is freely available as an Open Access publication and reports a new use for the 3D astrocyte culture models we have developed previously. The astrocyte cultures were […]

The Phillips Lab is moving to UCL

The research group is moving to University College London on 1st November 2013 as James has been appointed to the post of Senior Lecturer in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering. This is an exciting change that will open up many new opportunities. The facilities and research environment offered at UCL are excellent and the transition to […]

New Paper: Engineered Neural Tissue for Peripheral Nerve Repair

Published online in Biomaterials on 5th July, this paper describes the construction and testing of living artificial nerve tissue that could potentially be used in regenerative medicine to repair peripheral nerves. The Engineered Neural Tissue is made by organising Schwann cells and collagen into robust sheets of aligned cellular material that support and guide neuronal […]

Oral presentation prize at Cell-Based Therapy symposium

Kathleen Sanen (collaborating PhD student at Hasselt University, Belgium) was awarded the prize for best oral presentation at the Cell-based therapies in central nervous system pathology symposium on April 12th 2013. This symposium covered a series of biological subjects relating to stem cells, their involvement in brain disease and trauma and their potential use in regenerative […]

New European Collaboration with Hasselt University, Belgium

The group is working closely with researchers from the Biomedical Research Institute (BIOMED) at Hasselt University on a new translational project in the field of peripheral nerve injury. The project has already involved two BIOMED researchers, Kathleen Sanen and Dr Wendy Martens, working in our labs at the OU. Kathleen is a PhD student in the Biophysics […]

Nerve repair research wins international prize

Melanie Georgiou won first prize for her presentation at the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) World Congress in Vienna. Melanie’s abstract was shortlisted for the prestigious Oral Presentation Award Session, during which the five finalists presented their work to an expert panel, who then led a question and answer session in front […]

New international collaboration to study microglia in 3D culture

We are involved in a new project entitled ‘Remodelling microglia in vitro in a 3D collagen construct’ in collaboration with Dr Sharmili Vidyadaran at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The PhD student working on the project in Dr Vidyadaran’s lab is Tong Chih Kong and financial support has been provided by the Research University Grant Scheme, Universiti Putra Malaysia.