(Dr Maria Chiara Arno)

I am a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. My research focuses on the development of new degradable materials for applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering. I am particularly interested in studying the interaction of human cells and tissues with polymeric materials and how these can influence cell behaviour, including adhesion, migration, and cell-cell interactions.

I grew up in lovely Sardinia, one of the major islands in Italy. I didn’t know I was going to be a scientist when I was growing up! In fact, I spent 5 years in high school studying Latin and ancient Greek. However, I loved my Chemistry classes, especially how easy I found understanding redox reactions, and that’s what motivated me to go for a Chemistry degree. Thus, I moved to the University of Padova to start my undergraduate studies in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology. In 2011 I participated in the amazing Erasmus programme and spent 6 months at King’s College London to undertake my final year project. I loved living in London and really enjoyed working in the lab, so I decided to stay for a PhD in the same group, focussing on the design and synthesis of analogues of hepcidin, a physiologically produced peptide involved in the regulation of iron metabolism.

After my PhD, I considered a career in academia more seriously, but I wanted to opt for a change in research direction. I then joined the Dove group in 2015 and focused my work on developing new polymeric carriers for drug delivery and tissue regeneration. I love working in a very diverse research environment and I am starting to establish my own multidisciplinary research line at the University of Birmingham. An overview of my research is presented below.

Check out my researchgate page

And follow me on twitter to keep up with my research @mchiara_arno

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