Dr Alberto Saiani - research
Research interests
Dr. Alberto Saiani research focuses on the characterisation of polymer and biopolymer materials across the length scales and in particular on the understanding of the chemical architecture - thermodynamic - structure - physical property correlations in complex polymeric systems using state of the art techniques which include neutron and X-ray small angle scattering on large scale facilities. His work encompasses a variety of polymeric materials including: lysozyme and petide-PNIPAAm conjugates hydrogels, polyurethanes elastomers, PMMA gels, polyolefin and PLGAs.
He has recently extended his activities into the creation of 3 dimensional hydrogel scaffolds from the self-assembly of de novo designed short peptides. These scaffolds have been further functionalised by conjugating the peptides to pH and temperature responsive polymers.
His research is currently funded by Leverhulme Trust, EPSRC, EU-FP6, AstraZeneca, Procter & Gamble, Huntsman Polyurethanes, SABIC. Alberto is a member of the Molecular Materials Centre (MMC) and the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC)
Current research projects
- Responsive hydrogels from polymer-peptide conjugates
- 3-D hydrogel formation from self-assembling peptides
- Protein based hydrogel for tissue engineering
- In Vitro degradation of poly(lactide-co-glycolide) block copolymers
- Studies of model segmented polyurethanes elastomers
- Associative and bio-adhesive properties of responsive polymers
- Engineering the properties of spray-dried detergent granules