Congratulations to Dr Clare Thompson (Queen Mary+Emulate Centre Scientist), Dr Joanne Nolan (CRUK-EPSRC post doc) and Dr Tim Hopkins (Versus Arthritis Research Fellow), who together won the award for best research presentation at the Industrial Liaison Forum organised by the School of Engineering and Materials Science. All three are developing organ-on-a-chip models for understanding complex disease processes and testing new therapeutics.

Drs Thompson and Hopkins have developed a synovium organ-chip for studying joint inflammation and arthritis. This includes the use of human cells derived from individual patients which the team hopes will enable clinicians to decide the most appropriate therapy for that person - a technique known as personalised medicine.

Dr Nolan is working on organ-chip models of breast cancer metastasis within bone. Her work in partnership with Dr Oliver Pearce (Barts Cancer Institute) and Dr Stefaan Verbruggen (SEMS) is helping to reveal new mechanisms regulating the development of these metastatic tumours. These organ-chips will reduce reliance on non-human animal models and ultimately provide a toolkit for testing new therapeutics.

These research projects in Prof Martin Knight's group, are part of extensive organ-on-a-chip research activity across Queen Mary University of London, represented by Queen Mary's Centre for Predictive in vitro Models. Our vision is to develop and use innovative organ-chip technology to deliver highest quality science and transformative healthcare solutions.

Updated by: Martin Knight