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Professor Alvaro Mata Print bio

Professor Alvaro Mata

Alvaro Mata, D.Eng., is Professor in Biomaterials and Bioengineering, Director of the Institute of Bioengineering, and the Head of the Bioengineering Centre of Life Sciences Initiative at Queen Mary University of London.

As the Director, Alvaro is responsible for building the next stage of the Institute of Bioengineering by integrating it within the new Life Sciences Initiative at Queen Mary and effectively integrating Science and Engineering with Medicine and Dentistry.

Previously, he was Associate Professor at the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London.

Alvaro’s research aims to bridge supramolecular chemistry, out-of-equilibrium processes, engineering, and biology to develop supramolecular bioengineering strategies to create new biofabrication strategies and materials that exhibit structural complexity, hierarchical order, and dynamic properties such as the capacity to grow and self-heal.

His team strives to develop innovative technologies and high impact research to generate creative technologies and solutions for a variety of bioengineering applications.

They are using highly interdisciplinary approaches that integrate engineering, materials science, chemistry, nanotechnology, biology, and medicine to develop materials and devices that are hierarchical, biomimetic, offer spatio-temporal control, adaptability, tunability, self-healing, and functionality.

His lab’s current research includes the development of in vitro biomimetic environments, dynamic and directed self-assembling systems, molecular printing within 3D environments, and molecularly-designed bioactive implants for applications such as tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug screening.

Alvaro was born in San José, Costa Rica. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas, his Master’s Degree of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, UK, and his Doctor of Engineering Degree also in Bioengineering from Cleveland State University in Ohio, USA.

During his doctorate he worked at the Cleveland Clinic with Professor Shuvo Roy and from 2005 to 2008 he worked as Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Samuel I. Stupp at the Northwestern University in Chicago, developing self-assembling materials for regenerative medicine. From 2008 to 2013 he was Head of the Nanotechnology Platform at Parc Científic Barcelona in Spain.

In 2015, he was named Director of the Institute of Bioengineering at Queen Mary University of London and Co-Lead of the Bioengineering Domain of the Life Sciences Initiative at Queen Mary University of London.

Alvaro has more than 41 original research articles in peered review journals like Science (2008), Nature Materials (2010), and Nature Chemistry (2015). He is a member of the Board of the Biomedical Engineering Association, member of the Editorial Board of several leading biomaterial journals, and a member of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform – Smart Materials Hub. Alvaro has more than 2,700 citations with the h-index of 20.

He was invited to many scientific presentations, such as Keynote lecture on Supramolecular engineering of novel biomaterials and biofabrication methods for regenerative medicine at Future Investigators of Regenerative Medicine (FIRM) in Girona, Spain, 2017; Keynote lecturer on Supramolecular engineering of advanced biomaterials based on peptides and proteins at the Annual European Society for Biomaterials Conference in Athens, Greece, 2017; and Plenary lecturer on Enabling biomaterial and biofabrication technologies for complex tissue engineering and regenerative medicine at EURO BioMAT 2017 in Weimar, Germany, 2017.

Alvaro is a recipient of many awards, such as:

His publications include:

Watch his 2016 interview by The President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis. Watch his presentation at Donald Ingber Public Lecture. Watch the NowThis report about artificial blood vessels that can grow on their own, an IoB Launch Event 2015, and the video Opening young minds to Bioengineering.

Listen to his interview by the WFIRM in Functional Materials and Biomimetic Environment — Episode 23. Listen to Alvaro speaking to @NakedScientists about his latest research into regenerating tooth enamel.

Read about Self Assembly Healing Protein Scaffold Cell Growth in Chemistry World. Read the articles New material could regenerate dental enamel and Protein disorder–order interplay to guide the growth of hierarchical mineralized structures.

View the abstract on Alvaro’s lecture at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus Seminar Series at the University of Oregon.

Visit his LinkedIn profile, ResearchGate profile and his contributions, his group lab page, QMUL profile, and his Institute page. Follow him on Twitter and view his Google Scholar page.

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