ProfFergal O'Brien

His group develops natural polymer- (such as collagen) scaffold-based therapeutics for tissue engineering with target applications in bone, cartilage, cardiovascular, corneal, respiratory, dermal and neural tissues. A major focus of on-going research has been to functionalise these scaffolds for use as delivery systems for biomolecules with a particular interest in the delivery of nucleic acids to enhance their therapeutic potential. His work also focuses on the use of these scaffolds as advanced 3D pathophysiology in vitro systems for drug development and for studying cellular crosstalk and understanding disease states in cancer, angiogenesis, immunology and infection. Prof. O'Brien also has a major interest in studying the response of living cells to mechanical stimuli (mechanobiology) and using biophysical stimuli to regulate stem cell differentiation. He is an inventor on numerous patents and has translated a number regenerative technologies for bone and cartilage repair to the clinic through spin-out formation (he has been a co-founder of 3 start-ups) and licensing to industry.