Professor Liam M Grover BMedSc(Hons), PhD, FIMMM

Professor Liam Grover

School of Chemical Engineering
Head of School
Professor in Biomaterials Science
Director of the Healthcare Technologies Institute (HTI)

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 371 8544
Email
l.m.grover@bham.ac.uk
Diary management - Elise Hughes
e.hughes.4@bham.ac.uk
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Address
Healthcare Technologies Institute
Institute of Translational Medicine
Heritage Building (Old Queen Elizabeth Hospital)
Mindelsohn Way
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TH

Professor Liam Grover is a Professor in Biomaterials Science and the Director of the Healthcare Technologies Institute, an interdisciplinary network of over 70 academics working together to advance new technologies and treatments that encourage better tissue healing and rehabilitation tools.  The HTI brings together leading experts from a variety of disciplines across the University of Birmingham, including chemical engineering, biomedical science, computer science, applied mathematics, chemistry and physics. Researchers across campus are working collaboratively to speed up the translation of new discoveries into health applications.

Professor Grover is a materials scientist by training, and completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham before moving to McGill University (Montreal) to work as a CIHR skeletal health scholar. He returned to Birmingham in 2006 to establish a research group within the School of Chemical Engineering.

He has published widely on the development of new materials to replace the function of tissues (more than 180 papers) and has filed more than ten patents to protect technologies that range from osteogenic cements through to scar reducing dressings. He has given well over 50 invited talks outside the UK.  Since starting his career, he has moved three technologies from concept through to clinical trial.  

Since returning to Birmingham, he has raised over £30m to fund his research on the development and translation of novel medical technologies (EPSRC, MRC, BBSRC, ERDF, EU, NC3Rs, NSFC – China, NIHR, RCDM, and industry) and is the Founder-Director of the Healthcare Technologies Institute, which works to help move novel technologies through the translational pipeline.  He sits on the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies SAT, the NIHR i4i panel and has sat on the MRC DPFS panel.

He was the youngest Professor in the history of the University of Birmingham (32) and the youngest ever Fellow of the Institute of Materials (30). 

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Qualifications

  • PGCert in learning and teaching in higher education, 2011
  • PhD in Dentistry, School of Dentistry, University of Birmingham, 2004
  • BMedSc(Hons), Biomedical Materials Science, University of Birmingham, 2001

Teaching

Professor Grover has a PGCert in teaching in further education, his current teaching responsibilities include:

  •  Module coordinator and principle lecturer on Bioscience for Engineers (Level H and Level M)
  •  Coordinator for Bioscience for Engineers practical week.
  •  Module coordinator and principle lecturer on Modern Genome Based Bioscience/Frontier Interdisciplinary Bioscience (Level M)
  •  Module coordinator for MSc summer research projects (Level M)
  •  Lecturer on Sustainable Development module (Level H)

He has also given lectures at Keele University, the University of Wuerzburg and has been invited to lecture at the Technical University of Vienna.

Postgraduate supervision

Liam Grover’s research focuses on the development and characterisation of materials for the regeneration of diseased and damaged tissues, particularly bone and bone-interfacing tissues, but he has also published on the delivery of fibroblasts and keratinocytes for skin regeneration. Within this broader field, four of his principal areas of current research activity are:

Regenerating the hard-soft tissue interface: developing bone-to-bone ligament replacements using fibrin and ceramics; reinforcing ligament replacements

Polymer gel-encapsulation of cells: evaluating how cell encapsulation affects the mechanical properties of hydrogels; hydrogel matrices; cell responses to encapsulation; ultrasonic enhancement of matrix production

Calcium phosphate materials chemistry: involvement of amorphous materials in biomineralisation; developing calcium phosphate cement formulations

Controlling mineralisation: use of cheap proteins to adjust crystal habitats in industrial materials; stabilisation of amorphous minerals

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Mikalef, G, Schofield, Z, Moxon, SR, Robinson, TE, Chu, HO, Nugent, PF, Baiocco, D, Esteban, PP & Grover, LM 2025, 'Electro‐Actuation of a Smart Hydrogel compatible with 3D printing', Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, vol. 113, no. 10, e38004. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.38004

Vasanthi Bathrinarayanan, P, Abadie, T, Perez Esteban, P, Vigolo, D, Simmons, MJH & Grover, LM 2025, 'Elevated hydrostatic pressure destabilizes VE-cadherin junctions in a time and shear stress dependent manner: An endothelium-on-chip study', APL Bioengineering, vol. 9, no. 3, 036113. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0275985

Robinson, TE, Clark, C, Moakes, RJA, Schofield, Z, Moiemen, N, Geoghegan, JA & Grover, LM 2025, 'Simultaneous viscoelasticity and sprayability in antimicrobial acetic acid-alginate fluid gels', Biomaterials advances, vol. 166, 214051. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioadv.2024.214051

Finlay, M, Hill, LA, Neag, G, Patel, B, Chipara, M, Lamont, HC, Frost, K, Patrick, K, Lewis, JW, Nicholson, T, Edwards, J, Jones, SW, Grover, LM & Naylor, AJ 2024, 'A detailed methodology for the long-term in vitro culture and analysis of three-dimensional, self-structuring bone models generated from cell lines or primary osteoblastic cell populations [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 3 approved with reservations]', F1000Research, vol. 12, 357. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.130779.2

Hamidi, AS, Hadis, MA, Williams, RL, Grover, LM & Palin, WM 2024, 'Design and development of a new flowable and photocurable lactide and caprolactone-based polymer for bone repair and augmentation', Materials Advances. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3ma01049j

Davies, SP, Ronca, V, Wootton, GE, Krajewska, NM, Bozward, AG, Fiancette, R, Patten, DA, Yankouskaya, K, Reynolds, GM, Pat, S, Osei-Bordom, DC, Richardson, N, Grover, LM, Weston, CJ & Oo, YH 2024, 'Expression of E-cadherin by CD8+ T cells promotes their invasion into biliary epithelial cells', Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, 853. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44910-2

Kosmidis Papadimitriou, A, Chong, SW, Shen, Y, Lee, OS, Knowles, TPJ, Grover, LM & Vigolo, D 2024, 'Fabrication of gradient hydrogels using a thermophoretic approach in microfluidics', Biofabrication, vol. 16, no. 2, 025023. https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/ad2b05

do Amaral, SR, Amantino, CF, Atanasov, A, Sousa, SO, Moakes, R, Oliani, SM, Grover, LM & Primo, FL 2024, 'Photodynamic Therapy as a Novel Therapeutic Modality Applying Quinizarin-Loaded Nanocapsules and 3D Bioprinting Skin Permeation for Inflammation Treatment', Pharmaceuticals, vol. 17, no. 9, 1169. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph17091169

Crastin, A, Martin, CS, Suresh, S, Davies, SP, Kearns, D, Parlak, A, Adcock, H, Filer, A, Jones, SW, Raza, K, Moakes, RJA, Grover, LM & Hardy, RS 2024, 'Structured Polymers Enable the Sustained Delivery of Glucocorticoids Within the Intra-articular Space', Advanced Healthcare Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202403000

Lamont, HC, Wright, AW, Devrie, K, Okur, KE, Jones, M, Masood, I, Hill, LJ, Nazhat, SN, Grover, LM, Haj, AJE & Metcalfe, AD 2024, 'Trabecular meshwork cell differentiation in response to collagen and TGFβ-2 spatial interactions', Acta Biomaterialia. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2024.08.046

Chapter

Mete Gunaydin, H, Fogg, S, Moakes, R & Grover, L 2025, Bioprinting a Tri-layered Skin Analogue. in T Biedermann & S Böttcher-Haberzeth (eds), Skin Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols. 2 edn, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2922, Humana Press, pp. 173-186. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-4510-9_13

Review article

do Amaral, SR, Atanasov, AP, de Souza, DCM, de Paiva, IF, Ferreira, ML, Grover, LM & Primo, FL 2025, '3D Bioprinted melanoma models: a novel paradigm for the assessment of anticancer strategies combining PDT and drug delivery system', BioMedical Engineering Online, vol. 24, 132. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12938-025-01476-4

Baiocco, D, Zhang, Z, Eisenstein, NM, Tai, N & Grover, LM 2025, 'Current Challenges in Hemostasis and Advances in Particle-Assisted Styptic Devices', Advanced Healthcare Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202502600

Northall, E, Grover, L, McGettrick, H, Newton Ede, M, Naylor, A & Jones, S 2025, 'Integrating intrinsic musculoskeletal pathology and genetics: Recent advances in unravelling the causative factors of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis', Bone Reports, vol. 27, 101882. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bonr.2025.101882

Bathrinarayanan, PV, Hallam, SM, Grover, LM, Vigolo, D & Simmons, MJH 2024, 'Microfluidics as a Powerful Tool to Investigate Microvascular Dysfunction in Trauma Conditions: A Review of the State‐of‐the‐Art', Advanced Biology. https://doi.org/10.1002/adbi.202400037

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Tissue regeneration; new implant materials; growth of tissue in the lab that could be implanted or used as a biological model to study factors that may influence tissues in the body.

Expertise

Tissue regeneration; new implant materials; growth of tissue in the lab that could be implanted or used as a biological model to study factors that may influence tissues in the body.