Dick obtained a BDS degree in 1983 and having completed House Officer and Senior House Officer posts in Birmingham and Liverpool undertook a PhD in the Anatomy Department at the University of Birmingham examining the influence of surface functional groups on the behaviour of primary rat osteoblasts. After obtaining his PhD (1989) he went to Kagoshima University Dental School for one year working as a clinical and research assistant. On returning to England he worked as a research fellow in Biological Sciences, investigating the influence of microstrain on the behaviour of bone derived cells, before taking up a lecturer’s position at the University of Bristol in Conservative Dentistry. He returned to Birmingham to work as a research fellow in the Biomaterials Unit at the School of Dentistry in 1991, and has had interest and publications in a variety of areas related primarily to bone replacement, and in vitro modelling of the development of implant host interfaces. More recently his research has moved towards the development of tissue engineering scaffolds, for replacement of bone and the development of potential transfer membranes, for delivery of oral keratinocytes. This work has been funded by both individual and joint projects with groups from Oxford, examining synthesis of bone using alginate scaffolds, and Aston developing a novel method for light activated crosslinking of alginate scaffolds, containing cells located both within and on the scaffolds.
Research Themes:
Scaffolds for tissue engineering of bone – a variety of scaffolds have been developed and examined for the potential replacement of bone including octacalcium phosphate crystals of different morphologies as well as hydrogels that could be crosslinked in novel ways. Particular crystal morphologies were identified that promoted the development of the osteoblast phenotype in vitro from bone marrow cells.
Tissue engineering of skin and oral mucosa – different techniques have been developed for potentially expanding and delivering keratinocytes to wound sites.
Biocompatibility of dental materials – different dental materials have been tested both biologically using a variety of cell types and mechanically to assess methods for improving biocompatibility.
Surface development of Bioglass – the process of surface development and modification in the presence or absence of proteins was examined using a variety of techniques and identified that proteins profoundly altered the widely accepted surface development pathways previously described.
Osteoblast substrate interactions – different substrates have been examined for their influence on the behaviour of primary osteoblasts and has identified the importance of functional groups in determining both osteoblast colonisation, adhesion morphology and synthetic activity, which were thought to be modulated through the different protein populations that adsorbed onto these substrates.
Wylie CM, Davenport AJ, Cooper PR, Shelton RM. (2010), Oral Keratinocyte Responses to Nickel-based Dental Casting Alloys In Vitro, Journal Of Biomaterials Applications, 25: 251-267.
Hunt NC, Smith AM, Gbureck U, Shelton RM, Grover LM. (2010), Encapsulation of fibroblasts causes accelerated alginate hydrogel degradation, Acta Biomaterialia, 6: 3649-3656.
Hunt NC, Shelton RM, Grover LM. (2009), Reversible mitotic and metabolic inhibition following the encapsulation of fibroblasts in alginate hydrogels, Biomaterials, 30: 6435-6443.
Scheven BAA, Shelton RM, Cooper PR, Walmsley AD, Smith AJ. (2009), Therapeutic ultrasound for dental tissue repair, Medical Hypotheses, 73: 591-593.
Liu Y, Shelton RM, Gbureck U, Barralet JE. (2009), Influence of calcium phosphate crystal morphology on the adhesion, spreading, and growth of bone derived cells, Journal Of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 90A: 972-980.
Chen FM, Shelton RM, Jin Y, Chapple ILC. (2009), Localized delivery of growth factors for periodontal tissue regeneration: role, strategies, and perspectives, Medicinal Research Reviews, 29: 472-513.
Murphy JC, Hofmann MP, O'Beirne JL, Coomaraswamy KS, Shelton RM. (2008), Monitoring the accelerated setting of Portland cement based dental materials, Key Engineering Materials, 361-363: 805-808.
Smith AM, Shelton RM, Perrie Y, Harris JJ. (2007), An initial evaluation of gellan gum as a material for tissue engineering applications, Journal Of Biomaterials Applications, 22: 241-254.