Biopolymer Research Centre

Projects and Research areas

Drug Delivery and Biomaterials

This research stream focuses on understanding the mechanical behaviour of biopolymers and how this can be tuned to facilitate their application as drug delivery vehicles or as biomaterials for tissue engineering and wound healing.

Environmentally sustainable medicines

The lack of detailed scientific characterisation of biopolymers extracted from plants can prevent the use of such materials in pharmaceuticals. Recent work funded by The Royal Society (Newton Fellowships) focused on revealing the chemical and physical properties of polysaccharides from plants native to sub Saharan Africa and demonstrate their use in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. This has since lead to further collaborative investigations on plants native to New Zealand with academics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and University of Jos Nigeria.

Foods

The foods research stream focuses on physical-chemistry of biopolymer-based food matter. In particular, our focus is on extracting, characterising, and tuning polysaccharide fine structures and manipulating their intermolecular interactions in order to improve their functionality. The goals are to use multidisciplinary approaches to give insights to the physicochemical properties of polysaccharide systems with the aim to create novel materials/ingredients with enhanced functionality.

Extraction and Analysis

This research area focuses on extraction and physico-chemical analysis of polysaccharides and how their chemical structure and physical properties can be fine-tuned by varying extraction conditions with the aim of understanding their structural properties for specific applications. Recent projects have focused on the quantification and chemical stability of heparin extracted from mucosa and the analysis of chitosan micro-/nano-particles to forensic and pharmaceutical applications.

Facilities

We are equipped with a suite of state of the art rheometers and viscometers, a calorimetry suite containing a range of DSC and TGA equipment, static and dynamic light scattering for particle size determination, Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis, SAXS, SEM, Mechanical Tester (tensile, compression), SEC-MALLS, HPAEC,  3D Bioprinter, access to recently refurbished primary and non primary cell culture facilities and in vitro pharmacopeia testing apparatus for dosage forms and a bespoke mucoadhesion tester.

Impact

Suspended Additive Layer Manufacturing: A solution to 3D printing with low viscosity bioinks

Our research on Suspended Additive Layer Manufacturing (SALM) opened up a radically new approach to 3D Bioprinting with low viscosity bioinks, with applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. We identify:

Healthcare impacts in allowing a greater range of hydrogel materials to be used in 3D bioprinting for soft tissues and to create tissue models for studying disease states and potential therapeutics

Category of impact: Technological impact.

Related Outputs

Moxon, S., Cooke, M., Cox, S., Smow, M., Jeys, L., Jones, S., Smith, A.* and Grover, L.* (2017) ‘Suspended manufacture of biological structures’ Advanced Materials. 29 1605594 

Cooke, M.E., Snow, M., Nandra, R., Holton, J., Chouhan, G., ter Horst, B., Esmaeli, M., Hill, L., Moakes, R., Jones, S.W., Williams, R., Moiemen, N., Smith, A.M., & Grover L.M (2018) Structuring of soft materials across multiple length scales for biomedical applications, Advanced Materials 1705013

Senior, J., Cooke, M., Grover, L.* and Smith, A.* (2019) ‘Fabrication of complex hydrogel structures using suspended layer additive manufacturing (SLAM)’ Advanced Functional Materials.  In Press

Bioactive Peptides

Natural peptides derived from meat waste are bioactive compounds with nutritional, functional and biological activities. In collaboration with Biofac A/S, Denmark our research has identified Peptide fractions displaying high bioactivity for further refinement of existing BIOFAC products and creating a new platform for the production and development of new peptide products.

Category of impact: Health impact, Economic Impact

Publications:

BIOFAC website article 

Pearman, N.A., Ronander, E., Smith, A.M., Morris, (2020) The identification and characterisation of novel bioactive peptides derived from porcine liver,  Current Research in Food Science, 3, 314-321

Heparin Analysis

Heparin is bioactive compounds derived mainly from pig mucosa and is used therapeutically for its anticoagulant activity. In collaboration with Leo Pharma, Copenhagen/Cork our research has identified progressive effects of environmental conditions on heparin structure and identified mechanisms of degradation in industrial process environments and proposed ways to improve the manufacturing processes and optimize the storage conditions of products containing pharmaceutically active heparin.

Furthermore, the research proposes alternative routes to certain modifications of heparin that may contribute to the preparation of new bioactive heparin-based derivatives.

Category of impact: Health impact, Economic Impact

Publications

Kozlowski, A.M., Yates, E.A., Roubroeks, J.P., Tømmeraas, K., Smith, A.M., Morris, G.A. (2021) Hydrolytic Degradation of Heparin in Acidic Environments: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Reveals Details of Selective Desulfation, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 13(4), pp. 5551–5563

UK Hydrocolloids Symposium Series

Founded and Chaired by Smith, Kontogiorgos, and Morris in 2013 and was held at the University of Huddersfield. This is now a biennial symposium for students, academics and industrialists to present their research and to promote sharing of ideas between disciplines for hydrocolloid applications. The 2nd Hydrocolloids Symposium was hosted by the University of Birmingham 10th September 2015 and the 3rd Hydrocolloids Symposium by University of Nottingham 13th September 2017. The 4th UK Hydrocolloids Symposium was held at the University of Leeds 12th September 2019.

• 1st UK Hydrocolloids Symposium
• 2nd UK Hydrocolloids Symposium 
• 3rd UK Hydrocolloids Symposium 
• 4th UK Hydrocolloids Symposium 

Opportunities for PhD and MSc by Research

We welcome enquiries related to experimental research across all research streams that include:

• Extraction, characterisation and analysis of polysaccharides and glycosaminoglycans
• Biopolymers for developing drug delivery systems
• 3D Bioprinting
• Biopolymer hydrogels for tissue engineering and wound healing
• Food Science

Collaborations

We have developed a global network of collaborators that include both academic and industrial researchers.

Academic:  

• University of Urbino, Italy

• University of Queensland, Australia

• University of Jos, Nigeria

• Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand,

• University of Birmingham, UK

• University of Nottingham, UK

• University of Liverpool, UK

Industrial:  

• Leo Pharma, Denmark

• LFB Biotechnology (France)

• BioFac A/C (Denmark)

• Regen Medical, (UK)