September 2023 – The Armstrong Group hosted the TCESNet Summer School: Patterning Cells with Sound, in which nine researchers from around Europe visited to learn about acoustic cell patterning:
September 2023 – Yi Huang joined the Armstrong Group as a Ph.D. student!
August 2023 – New paper “Microfibrous Scaffolds Guide Stem Cell Lumenogenesis and Brain Organoid Engineering” with Prof. Molly Stevens and Prof. Juergen Knoblich published in Advanced Materials (link).
August 2023 – Farnaz and Norah Jane undertook a three-week placement in Tsinghua University (China) working in the laboratory of Dr Liliang Ouyang!
July 2023 – Dr Farnaz Ghorbani joined the Armstrong Group as a postdoctoral research associate!
June 2023 – Zhipeng reached the finals of the University of Bristol Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition with her presentation “Injectable Gels: Healing Broken Bones from the Inside Out” – well done Zhipeng!
May 2023 – James and Norah Jane were awarded GW4 funding to develop a “Brain Tissue Engineering Community” together with Dr Nazia Mehrban, Dr Yasir Syed, Tianqi Wang, Matthew Little.
March 2023 – James and Ximena attended and presented at TERMIS Manchester!
February 2023 – Dr Aya Elghajiji undertook a short research placement at KU Leuven (funded by the Royal Society) learning about synthetic biomaterials for organoid culture in the group of Dr Adrian Ranga.
February 2023 – Dr Camila Tovani joined the Armstrong Group on a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship!
December 2022/January 2023 – Armstrong Group socials for Christmas party and Lunar New Year!
November 2022 – Alex Doulah and Vasavi Tadikamalla joined the Armstrong Group as MRes students!
October 2022 – Norah-Jane Prendergast, Zhipeng Deng, and Oliver Milner joined the Armstrong Group as Ph.D. students!
June 2022 – Sammy Shorthouse joined the Armstrong Group as a Ph.D. student!
June 2022 – Dr Aya Elghajiji joined the Armstrong Group as a postdoctoral research associate!
May 2022 – Martha Lavelle undertook a short research placement at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology learning about cerebral organoid culture in the group of Dr Madeline Lancaster.
March 2022 – Camila Tovani secured a highly competitive Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship and will be joining the Armstrong Group in 2023 to develop regenerative therapies for non-union bone fracture repair. Congratulations Camila – we look forward to working with you!
March 2022 – Martha Lavelle joined the Armstrong Group as a Ph.D. student!
March 2022 – Dr James Armstrong received his President’s Award and Medal for Excellence in Education: Outstanding Assistant Supervisor at the Royal Albert Hall, London. He was nominated for this award in 2019 by PhD students at Imperial College London (Dr Chunching Li, Dr Valeria Nele, Dr Camille Marijon, Dr Marco Sorbona, Dr Hakon Hogset, Kaja Ritzau Reid, Renee Tonkin, Katya Pchelintseva) with the prize citation noting his record of exemplary pastoral care.
January 2022 – “Advances in the Fabrication of Biomaterials for Gradient Tissue Engineering,” a review that was co-authored with Dr Chunching Li, Dr Liliang Ouyang, and Prof. Molly Stevens was featured in the Best of 2021 special collection by Trends in Biotechnology.
November 2021 – Dr James Armstrong began his UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, setting up his research group at the Department of Translational Health Sciences at the University of Bristol!
Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_College_-_South_Kensington_Campus.jpg
Prior to starting his Future Leaders Fellowship, Dr James Armstrong previously lectured in Advanced Tissue Engineering, a module for Masters students and final year undergraduates at Imperial College London. These lectures examined the need for complex tissue engineering and outlined different biofabrication strategies that can be employed. Much of this lecture material can be found in the following reviews:
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aston_Webb_building,_part_of_Imperial_College_London,_spring_2013.jpg#filelinks
In May 2020, Dr Armstrong set up Virtual Seminars in Biomedical Science with Dr Brian Aguado (UCSD) to provide a platform for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to share their research during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns. This series continued across the pandemic, co-chaired by Dr Natalie Kirkland (UCSD) and Dr Sarah Quackenbush (Duke), with 87 fantastic seminars and over 1500 registrants from across the world. We concluded in September 2021 with a keynote address from Prof. Jason Burdick.
Talks are being uploaded, where possible, to our YouTube channel – please subscribe to receive updates. In October 2021, Virtual Seminars in Biomedical Science was featured in this Nature Reviews Materials comment “community-driven online initiatives have reshaped scientific engagement.”