Dr Maria Chiara Arno

The recipient of the 2023 RSC Felix Franks Biotechnology Medal was Dr Maria Chiara Arno, of the School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham.

Maria Chiara received the award for her outstanding contributions in advancing the understanding of material-cell interactions.

Maria Chiara received her Masters’ degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry & Technology at the University of Padova in 2011 and her PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at King’s College London in 2015.  Since then, she has been a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and then from 2020 a Birmingham Fellow and Assistant Professor in Polymeric Biomaterials at the University of Birmingham.  

As a PDRA, Maria Chiara brought a new skill set (evaluation of materials’ biological performance in vitro and in vivo) to Prof. Dove’s research group at Warwick, leading a new research strand in precision biomaterials design. This had a transformative impact in the group’s research, moving the focus from fundamental materials chemistry to its application in biologically relevant settings (e.g., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 9178-9182; Biomacromolecules 2018, 19, 3427-3434; Biomaterials 2018, 180, 184-192; Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 3250; Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 2460).

Among her most significant contributions has been the development of a technique to precisely control the morphology and size of semi-crystalline nanoparticles in water. This research (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 16980-16985) represents the first report on the biological application of nanostructures prepared by crystallisation-driven self-assembly, allowing the application of this technology in the fields of drug delivery and tissue engineering towards to an entirely new class of biomaterials. Building on this original idea, she has pioneered the concept of 2D nanoparticles as tissue adhesives (Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 1420). Her studies have significantly advanced our understanding of how nanomaterials’ interactions with biological systems can be exploited to engineer living materials.

Maria Chiara has established independent collaborations across universities and companies in the UK and worldwide. As an example, she was awarded a Researcher Mobility Grant in 2018 to visit the University of Queensland to establish a new research collaboration (Biomater. Sci. 2023, accepted; ACS Cent. Sci. 2018, 4, 718-723; Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 1745).

She has proven herself to be an inspired leader with a unique multidisciplinary approach, bridging the interface of supramolecular chemistry and chemical biology, that crosses the traditional biotechnology and materials chemistry boundaries.

Maria Chiara was presented the award after her lecture at the RSC MIBIO2023 meeting "Stability of Biopharmaceuticals: From Molecular Interactions to Successful Products" held on 18th October 2023 at Downing College Cambridge.