Bio-nano interactions: new tools, insights and impacts

Kevin Kendall gained his PhD from the Cavendish Laboratory in 1970 for studies of contact and friction supervised by Professor David Tabor FRS. He then worked at British Railways in Derby on adhesion of iron oxide nanoparticles and became interested in fracture of adhesive joints, co-authoring the JKR paper with Johnson and Roberts. After post-docs in Australia and USA, he joined ICI in Runcorn and continued to pursue both theory and application of particle adhesion and cracking of polymers, cements and ceramics. Later he was Professor at Keele and Birmingham, where he started the ceramic fuel cell spin-out company Adelan Ltd, based on thermal-shock resistant zirconia.

Dr Kendall is an environmental scientist, with faculty-level experience in America, Asia and Europe. She specialised in the field of airborne particles, focussing on air pollution, nanoparticle toxicity in the lung, fuel cells (a clean energy technology) and policy development for atmospheric protection.  In her early career, she studied air pollution impacts on materials and human health, specialising in the exposure measurement, nano-characterisation and health impact assessment of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nanoparticles (<100 nm). She currently develops fuel cells to reduce combustion emissions, primarily as a public health intervention with ancillary environmental benefits. Her career goal is to curtail combustion emissions to the atmosphere, to protect human and environment health.  She was awarded the prestigious Rosenblith Prize by the HEI (www.healtheffects.org) in 2004, and is a Project Manager at Adelan with a Visiting Senior Lecturer Post at University of Southampton Medical School.

Professor Liam Grover’s research focuses on the interactions that occur between materials and biological systems.  By enhancing our understanding of these interactions, he has been able to design implantable materials that are capable of initiating the tissue regeneration process.  Prior to setting up his research group at the University of Birmingham, UK, he worked at McGill University in Montreal, where he specialised in the mechanisms known to influence the bone formation process.  Professor Grover has published in excess of 100 papers, is named on five patent filings and has written four book chapters.  He was one of the youngest researchers to be made a fellow of the institute of materials and was made one of the youngest professor’s in the history of the University of Birmingham at the age of 32.

"Paula M Mendes received her MSc (1997) and PhD (2002) degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. She undertook post-doctoral research firstly (2002–04) in the School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, UK, and subsequently (2004–06) at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She began her academic career in the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham in 2006, as an academic fellow, and has been a Professor of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and EPSRC Leadership Fellow since 2013. The research in her group lies on the development of novel methods for controlling the structure and functionality of materials at the molecular and nanometer scale and their application in biology and medicine. "