Second Prize in EPSRC Photography Competition

Dr Mahetab Amer’s photograph, entitled: “High throughput screening in search for serendipity.”

Dr Mahetab Amer’s entry for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Photography Competition has been awarded second prize in the Innovation category.

High throughput (HT) screening is used in order to screen hundreds of polymers to investigate their material properties and how these can influence human mesenchymal stem cells’ ability to turn into bone cells. The ability of cells to attach to materials is an essential step towards the discovery of new biomaterials for growing stem cells. The attached cells show different morphologies on different polymer surfaces - an indicator of their different biocompatibilities. Dr Mahetab Amer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham. Mahetab joined the EPSRC Programme Grant in Next Generation Biomaterials Discovery in 2017, working on the differentiation of human mesenchymal stem
cells to bone. This work is part of Research Challenge 3 of the Programme Grant led by Felicity Rose which is looking at Advanced Materials for 3D Stem Cell Differentiation and Regenerative Medicine. 

EPSRC have publicised the results of the competition and the winning images will be available to the media.