
Health and food
Our group is a multidisciplinary team of chemists, physicists and chemical engineers, working closely with biologists and biomedical scientists in academia, industry and government and academia to provide novel modelling, analysis and engineering approaches for samples and systems relevant to healthcare and food.
Research areas
Our research interests are split into three main areas:
Engineering and validation of biomaterials
Our researchers are designing novel materials and structures to recapitulate features of healthy or diseased human tissue, e.g., cancer, bone (Velliou, Carta, Roth). We also use materials to design novel wearable sensors (Crean) as well as for encapsulating drugs and active molecules for targeted drug delivery (Whelligan, Roth, Howlin, Sacchi, Liu, Chen, Cai). Our multidisciplinary research in this area enables the delivery of low-cost animal free technologies for drug and disease screening, therefore accelerating their delivery from bench to bed.
Development of novel analytical tools for healthcare
Our researchers (Bailey, Crean, Felipe-Sotelo, Al-Sid Cheikh, de Jesus, Costa, Lewis) are working with academia and industry internationally to pioneer new approaches in the analysis of tissues, cells and biological fluids.
This includes high spatial resolution imaging and depth profiling of molecular and elemental components in cells and tissues, non- invasive sampling strategies for therapeutic drug monitoring and diagnostics and point of care sensor technologies. We have unique tools for analysis of biological samples, including the EPSRC-funded National Ion Beam Centre for trace element imaging, Nano-extraction Facility for single cell and tissue analysis and Raman Spectroscopy as well as a NERC-funded facility for Laser induced Breakdown Spectroscopy.
Food characterisation and processing
Our researchers (Felipe-Sotelo, Sears, Ward, Short, Lian, Chen) are developing cutting edge analytical and modelling approaches to characterise foods and optimise their processing. Furthermore, we are working closely with industry on designing novel emerging sustainable decontamination approaches (Velliou, Bussemaker) for achieving food safety and for mapping and controlling the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of food related pathogens from farm to fork.
Our team
A list of publications can be found on each of our team members profiles, if you'd like to find out more about what they are working on.

Professor Melanie Bailey
Theme Leader for Health and Food Technologies, EPSRC Fellow, and Reader in Analytical Science

Dr Maya Al Sid Cheikh
Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry

Dr Natalie Belsey
Senior Lecturer & Principal Scientist at NPL

Dr Madeleine Bussemaker
Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

Professor Qiong Cai
Professor in Sustainable Energy and Materials; Sustainability Fellow; Theme Leader on Chemicals for Net-Zero within the Institute for Sustainability

Dr Daniela Carta
Senior Lecturer in Physical Chemistry

Professor Tao Chen
Associate Vice-President, International and Professor in Chemical Engineering

Dr Carol Crean
Reader in Physical and Materials Chemistry

Professor Adrian Dobbs
Professor of Organic Chemistry and Head of School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Dr Monica Felipe-Sotelo
Lecturer in Radiation and Analytical Chemistry

Dr Lian Liu
Reader

Dr Peter Roth
Senior Lecturer in Applied Organic/Polymer Chemistry and School Postgraduate Research Director

Dr Marco Sacchi
Associate Professor and Royal Society University Research Fellow in Physical and Computational Chemistry, Theme Leader in Sustainable Energy and Materials Research

Dr Patrick Sears
Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and Forensic Analysis

Dr Michael Short
Associate Professor of Process Systems Engineering

Professor Neil Ward
Emeritus Professor in Analytical Chemistry

Dr Daniel Whelligan
Senior Lecturer in Organic/Medicinal Chemistry
Postdoctoral researchers

Daniel Baqer
Postgraduate Research Student

Dr Natalie Belsey
Senior Lecturer & Principal Scientist at NPL

Dr Catia Costa
Research Fellow

Claire Davison
Postgraduate Research Student

Cecile Frampas
Postgraduate Research Student

Roisin Guthrie
Postgraduate Research Student

Hannah Jefford
Postgraduate Research Student

Dr Holly-May Lewis
Senior Laboratory Technician UPLC-MS (Chronobiology)

Yuman Li
Postgraduate Research Student

Katie Longman
Postgraduate Research Student

Mason Malloy
Postgraduate Research Student

Simone Mathias
Postgraduate Research Student

Roma Mulholland
Postgraduate Research Student

Athanasios Nikolaou
Postgraduate Research Student

Qamar Nisa
Postgraduate Research Student

Anthony Payne
Postgraduate Research Student

Jason Raymond
Postgraduate Research Student

Hammy Salam
Postgraduate Research Student

Matt Spick
Lecturer in Health and Biomedical Data Analytics

Charlotte Vale
Postgraduate Research Student