School of Pharmacy

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Felicity Rose

Professor of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange, Faculty of Science

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Biography

I attained a BSc (HONS) degree in Applied Biochemistry from Liverpool John Moores University in 1993 following which I joined the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of Nottingham. I attained my PhD in 1999 under the supervision of Professor Yash Mahida. In 2000, I took the opportunity to join the Tissue Engineering Group within the School of Pharmacy and was rapidly promoted to Senior Research Fellow in 2002. In 2003, I was awarded a prestigious University of Nottingham sponsored Anne McLaren Research Fellowship, aimed at encouraging female scientists to pursue a career in academia. At the same time, I was appointed to a Lectureship in Tissue Engineering, a post which I took up in 2005. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007 and Reader in 2013. I took up the position of Head of the Tissue Engineering Group in 2015 and have recently been appointed as Head of the Division of Regenerative Medicine and Cellular Therapies.

In addition to my research, I am a Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) committee member (membership secretary). I am also a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College 2006 and regularly review grant applications for BBSRC, NC3Rs and including for the EU member states. In addition, I review manuscripts for publication for journals such as Biomaterials, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, and Tissue Engineering. Communicating science to school children is a particular passion for which I won an 'Exceptional Winner' Staff Volunteering Award (2005) from the Higher Education Active Community Fund (HEACF) for establishing a departmental after-school science club for primary school children.

Expertise Summary

As part of a team of stem cell biologists and tissue engineers, I am an academic member of the Wolfson Centre for Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Modelling (STEM) based within the multidisciplinary research facilities of the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences (CBS). A biochemist by training, I now have over 15 years year experience within the field of tissue engineering. My expertise lies in scaffold fabrication primarily from synthetic polymers, in particular electrospinning, and the subsequent assessment of mammalian cell interaction with those materials. I specialise in mucosal tissue engineering having led projects on lung, gut and cornea regeneration with a particular interest in developing human in vitro models to study disease biology and for drug screening applications, with the ultimate goal of developing tissue grafts for transplantation.

Teaching Summary

Master of Pharmacy (MPharm)

B31BFI Bacterial and Fungal Infections Year 1 (module contributor)

Final Year Research Projects

PhD training courses

Mammalian Cell Culture: theory to support the practice

EPSRC Thematic CDT - bio-hybrid and bioinstructive materials for healthcare applications (PI)

Research Summary

My research focuses on the ability to control stem and differentiated cell behaviour during the tissue regeneration process to develop in vivo-like in vitro models for research and drug screening… read more

Recent Publications

Current Research

My research focuses on the ability to control stem and differentiated cell behaviour during the tissue regeneration process to develop in vivo-like in vitro models for research and drug screening applications, and ultimately tissues for transplantation. In particular, I have interests in epithelial tissue engineering with a focus on intestinal and corneal regeneration. In addition, I am involved in developing scaffolds that support tissue growth, by providing more efficient nutrient transport networks, and those that mimic the in vivo architecture of the native tissue. I also collaborate with optical engineers to develop sophisticated bioreactor systems that can be used for online monitoring of tissue growth.

The intestinal tissue engineering programme is currently supported with funding from the BBSRC (and in collaboration with Professors Chris Hawkey and Ilyas Mohammed, and Drs Lee Buttery, Virginie Sottile, Luisa Martinez Pomares, and Morgan Alexander, Nottingham) and is focussed on developing methods to derive and maintain intestinal progenitors for future tissue engineering programmes and the design of scaffolds to mimic the intestinal stem cell niche in vitro. This includes a collaboration with mathematical modellers (Dr Sarah Waters and Professor John King, Nottingham) to derive models of the dynamic environment of the intestinal crypts in order to recreate this in vitro. Corneal regeneration is funded by the EPSRC and MRC (in collaboration with Professors Kevin Shakesheff and Harminder Dua, and Dr Paddy Tighe, Nottingham) and involves developing a controlled release drug delivery device for wound healing and tissue engineering of the corneal stroma. Collaborations with Drs John Crowe and Steven Morgan from the Applied Optics Group (Nottingham) and Sarah Waters have focussed on developing imaging systems for monitoring tissue development within bioreactors and we are currently developing methods to include nutrient monitoring which will eventually lead to automated feedback systems.

Memberships of Committees and Professional Bodies

• Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) Committee Member.• EU COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) Committee Member (Biomedicine and Molecular Biosciences Domain Committee).• Member, EPSRC Peer Review College.

School of Pharmacy

University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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