Group Lead
Dr Marco Giardiello
Marco is a Lecturer and UKRI Research fellow working out of the Department of Chemistry. He graduated from The University of Leicester with an MChem degree in 2002 and a PhD in biological inorganic chemistry in 2007. The research focus was towards biologically responsive MRI contrast agents and luminescence lanthanide probes. In 2010 he joined University of Liverpool working on Non-Attrition HAART nanoparticle therapies for HIV/AIDS Drug Delivery and has since been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to develop novel nanomedicine technologies.
Team members
Lewis Owens
Lewis graduated with a first class MChem degree from the University of Liverpool in 2022. During this time, he completed a summer placement at Unilever regarding deposition studies of potential new environmentally friendly materials. From there, he completed his MChem project within Prof. Paul O’Neill’s group, researching the synthesis of novel anti-malarial therapeutics. Since graduating, Lewis is now in the Giardiello group working towards his PhD with the goal of developing novel MPI tracers, with optimisation for theranostic applications.
Neve Thomson
Neve graduated in the summer of 2021 with a first class MChem (Hons) degree from the University of Liverpool. During her undergraduate programme, she spent a semester abroad at the University of Georgia, before returning to complete a research project in Professor Matthew Rosseinsky’s group focussing on ion exchange in a multiple-anion material. During the summer of 2020, she completed an internship working alongside academics facilitating the transfer between virtual learning environments. For her Master’s project, Neve synthesised chiral functionalised enamine N-oxides in order to create new heterocyclic scaffolds for drug discovery. Neve was honoured with three academic awards during her undergraduate degree, most notably the Ellard Woolcott Prize in Chemistry in her final year for best performance in the Honours School of Chemistry. Neve is now studying for her PhD in the Giardiello group developing novel nanoparticulate theranostic agents for use in targeted drug delivery which can be monitored by MRI.
Dr Elena Ureña Horno
After earning her Master’s degree in 2010 at the CESIF, (Madrid), Elena worked at Alcala Farma before moving to the UK for a placement in Diamond Light Source, where she worked for the multimode infrared microscopy and imaging beamline B22. In 2019 she received her PhD in Nanoscience working on inorganic colloidal nanoparticles and their energy applications. Her research focused on the size and shape control, surface functionalization, and evaluation of the photoluminescence enhancing properties of Lanthanides Doped-Upconversion Nanoparticles. Elena joined the group to work with Inorganic/Organic Nanocomposite Particles for both diagnostic and therapeutic medical applications.