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

Professor Liam Grover

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

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 371 8544
Email
l.m.grover@bham.ac.uk
PA - Emma Lardner
e.c.lardner@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Healthcare Technologies Institute
3rd Floor, 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.

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). 

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

Freer, S, Sui, T, Hanham, SM, Grover, L & Navarro-Cia, M 2021, 'A hybrid reflection retrieval method for terahertz dielectric imaging of human bone', Biomedical Optics Express, vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 4807-4820. https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.427648

Hughes, EAB, Jones‐salkey, O, Forey, P, Chipara, M & Grover, LM 2021, 'Exploring the Formation of Calcium Orthophosphate‐Pyrophosphate Chemical Gardens', ChemSystemsChem. https://doi.org/10.1002/syst.202000062

Moakes, RJA, Davies, SP, Stamataki, Z & Grover, LM 2021, 'Formulation of a Composite Nasal Spray Enabling Enhanced Surface Coverage and Prophylaxis of SARS-COV-2', Advanced Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202008304

Hall, T, Hughes, E, Sajjad, H, Kuehne, S, Grant, M, Grover, L & Cox, S 2021, 'Formulation of a reactive oxygen producing calcium sulphate cement as an anti-bacterial hard tissue scaffold', Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, 4491. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-84060-9

Robinson, TE, Moakes, RJA & Grover, LM 2021, 'Low Acyl Gellan as an Excipient to Improve the Sprayability and Mucoadhesion of Iota Carrageenan in a Nasal Spray to Prevent Infection With SARS-CoV-2', Frontiers in Medical Technology, vol. 3, 687681. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmedt.2021.687681

Foster, NC, Allen, P, El Haj, AJ, Grover, LM & Moakes, RJA 2021, 'Tailoring Therapeutic Responses via Engineering Microenvironments with a Novel Synthetic Fluid Gel', Advanced Healthcare Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202100622

Iordachescu, A, Hughes, E, Joseph, S, Hill, EJ, Grover, L & Metcalfe, T 2021, 'Trabecular bone organoids: a micron-scale ‘humanised’ prototype designed to study the effects of microgravity and degeneration', Nature NPJ Microgravity, vol. 7, no. 1, 17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-021-00146-8

Villapún, VM, Carter, LN, Gao, N, Addison, O, Webber, MA, Shepherd, DET, Andrews, JW, Lowther, M, Avery, S, Glanvill, SJ, Grover, LM & Cox, S 2020, 'A design approach to facilitate selective attachment of bacteria and mammalian cells to additively manufactured implants', Additive Manufacturing, vol. 36, 101528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2020.101528

Lee, KC, Bamford, A, Gardiner, F, Agovino, A, ter Horst, B, Bishop, J, Grover, L, Logan, A & Moiemen, N 2020, 'Burns objective scar scale (BOSS): Validation of an objective measurement devices based burn scar scale panel', Burns, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 110-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2019.05.008

Hughes, EAB, Chipara, M, Hall, TJ, Williams, RL & Grover, LM 2020, 'Chemobrionic structures in tissue engineering: self-assembling calcium phosphate tubes as cellular scaffolds', Biomaterials Science, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 812-822. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9bm01010f

Robinson, TE, Hughes, EAB, Bose, A, Cornish, EA, Teo, JY, Eisenstein, NM, Grover, LM & Cox, SC 2020, 'Filling the Gap: A Correlation between Objective and Subjective Measures of Injectability', Advanced Healthcare Materials, vol. 9, no. 5, 1901521. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.201901521

Robinson, TE, Hughes, EAB, Wiseman, OJ, Stapley, SA, Cox, SC & Grover, LM 2020, 'Hexametaphosphate as a potential therapy for the dissolution and prevention of kidney stones', Journal of Materials Chemistry B, vol. 8, no. 24, pp. 5215-5224. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0TB00343C

Robinson, T, Eisenstein, N, Cox, S, Moakes, R, Thompson, AM, Ahmed, Z, Hughes, E, Hill, LJ, Stapley, S & Grover, L 2020, 'Local injection of a hexametaphosphate formulation reduces heterotopic ossification in vivo', Materials today. Bio, vol. 7, 100059. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtbio.2020.100059

Conference article

Ginestra, P, Ceretti, E, Lobo, D, Lowther, M, Cruchley, S, Kuehne, S, Villapun, V, Cox, S, Grover, L, Shepherd, D, Attallah, M, Addison, O & Webber, M 2020, 'Post processing of 3D printed metal scaffolds: A preliminary study of antimicrobial efficiency', Procedia Manufacturing, vol. 47, pp. 1106-1112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.04.126

Review article

Bennett, N, Chinnery, HR, Downie, L, Hill, LJ & Grover, L 2020, 'Material, immunological, and practical perspectives on eye drop formulation', Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 30, no. 14, 1908476. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201908476

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.