People | Bioengineering and Nanomedicine Group

Group Leader

Oommen Podiyan

Grant Holder
Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology
Tampere University
oommen.oommen@tuni.fi

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2768-0133

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About me

Albert Einstein has said 'if you have never failed, you never tried anything new'. Integrating your expertise into new areas outside your domain of expertises and taking calculated risks, makes one a productive scientist.

I am an organic chemist by training and a biologist at heart. Harnessing the transformative power of synthetic chemistry for biomedical application is the primary goal of my research. I aim to bridge this knowledge gap and develop translational technologies for various biomedical needs. As a trained organic chemist, I have the advantage of being able to tailor the properties of the materials and thus tune their immunological and cellular functions. Currently, my research spreads over diverse areas: Nanomedicine, drug delivery, gene delivery, cardiac and bone tissue engineering, stem cell engineering for transplantation, immunomodulation of cells and materials and developing bioconjugation strategies.

Responsibilities

Teaching Responsibilities: I am the course coordinator for two Master’s courses, namely: Nanomedicine & Advanced Drug Delivery Technologies(BBT.BTE.306, 5 ECTS), and Tissue Engineering Applications (BBT.BTE.304, 5 ECTS). The essence of my teaching philosophy is that research and teaching are strongly coupled. As these two subjects are close to my research activity, the content of my lectures are structured such that research and application are strongly engaged. The lectures are research-oriented compilations of state-of-the-artdevelopments in the scientific fields.

Research Mentor: I am currently supervising three Ph.D. student; Mr. Sumanta Samanta, Mr. Austin D. Evans, and Ms. Negin Pournoori and three Master’s students. The supervision includes designing new projects, monitor overall academic progress, giving training in fabrication and characterization of soft materials and nanoparticles. I have developed my research supervision strategy based on my interactions with research students.

Research unit

Bioengineering and Nanomedicine Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology

Research fields

Tissue Engineering of Tumor Microenvironment, Nanomedicine, Engineering 3D scaffold, Bioconjugation Chemistry, Cell Engineering

Funding

Main positions of trust

● Remote reviewer for ERC Starting Grant (PE11 Panel; 2021)

● Associate Editor, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

● Co-founder and partner of a spin-off called ‘Uppsala Therapeutics AB’

● Editorial board member of the journal ‘Frontiers in Nanotechnology’

● International Advisory Board Member for H2020 ERA-Chair project TRANSCEND-IRO (ESEI-BioMed)-Romania (2020-2026)

● Scientific Advisory Board Member, European Society of Biomaterials

● Scientific board member of European Chapter Meeting of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society

● Expert grant reviewer in ‘Discipline for Physical Sciences and Engineering’ for the National Science Center, Poland (2016-2018)

● Expert grant reviewer for ‘Sir Henry Welcome Trust Post-Doctoral Fellowship’, UK. (2021)

● Guest editor of the JuFo1 journal ‘Disease Markers’ an open access journal from Hindawi

● 2016- Organizing Committee Member and Scientific Advisory Board, TERMIS Europe 2016/ Uppsala/ Sweden

● May 2012 Organizing Committee Member and Sessions Chair/ 22nd Interdisciplinary Research Conference on Biomaterials, ‘GRIBOI’/ Uppsala University/ Sweden

● Reviewer for the leading peer-reviewed journals: Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials; Biomaterials; Biomacromolecules; ACS Applied Materials and Interface; Scientific Reports; Acta Biomaterialia; Chemical Communications; Small; Nanoscale; Biomaterials Science; Macromolecular Bioscience; Molecular Biosystems; RSC Advance; Journal of Materials Chemistry B; Soft Matter, etc.

Selected publications

Some of my selected publications in the field of nanomedicine, drug and gene delivery, cell engineering & tissue engineering.

Biomimetic polyelectrolyte coating of stem cells suppresses thrombotic activation and enhances its survival and function, V. K. Rangasami, K. Asawa, Y. Teramura, K. L. Blanc, B. Nilsson, J. Hilborn, O. P. Varghese, O. P. Oommen, Biomaterials Advances, 2023, 147, 213331.

Group Leader

Oommen Podiyan

Ph.D. Students

Negin Pournoori

Sumanta Samanta

Post Doc

Masters student

Henri Arola

Lotta Hiihtola

Alumni

Dr. Vignesh Kumar Rangasami