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

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

Hughes, EAB, Robinson, TE, Bassett, DB, Cox, SC & Grover, LM 2019, 'Critical and diverse roles of phosphates in human bone formation', Journal of Materials Chemistry B, vol. 7, no. 47, pp. 7460-7470. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9tb02011j

Senior, JJ, Cooke, ME, Grover, LM & Smith, AM 2019, 'Fabrication of Complex Hydrogel Structures Using Suspended Layer Additive Manufacturing (SLAM)', Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 29, no. 49, 1904845. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201904845

Davies, O, Cox, S, Davis, E, Jones, S & Grover, L 2019, 'Corrigendum: Osteoblast-Derived Vesicle Protein Content Is Temporally Regulated During Osteogenesis: Implications for Regenerative Therapies.', Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology.

Hall, T, Blair, J, Moakes, R, Pelan, E, Grover, L & Cox, S 2019, 'Antimicrobial emulsions: formulation of a triggered release reactive oxygen delivery system', Materials Science and Engineering C, vol. 103, 109735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2019.05.020

Pearson, M, Philip, AM, Nicholson, T, Cooke, M, Grover, L, Newton Ede, M & Jones, S 2019, 'Evidence of intrinsic impairment of osteoblast phenotype at the curve apex in girls with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis', Spine Deformity, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 533-542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jspd.2018.11.016

Chouhan, G, Moakes, RJA, Esmaeili, M, Hill, LJ, deCogan, F, Hardwicke, J, Rauz, S, Logan, A & Grover, LM 2019, 'A self-healing hydrogel eye drop for the sustained delivery of decorin to prevent corneal scarring', Biomaterials, vol. 210, pp. 41-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.04.013

Nikravesh, N, Davies, OG, Azoidis, I, Moakes, RJA, Marani, L, Turner, M, Kearney, CJ, Eisenstein, NM, Grover, LM & Cox, SC 2019, 'Physical structuring of injectable polymeric systems to controllably deliver nanosized extracellular vesicles', Advanced Healthcare Materials, vol. 8, no. 9, 1801604. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.201801604

Davies, OG, Cox, SC, Azoidis, I, McGuinness, AJ, Cooke, M, Heaney, LM & Grover, LM 2019, 'Osteoblast-derived vesicle protein content is temporally regulated during osteogenesis: Implications for regenerative therapies', Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, vol. 7, no. APR, 92. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00092

Iordachescu, A, Williams, R, Hulley, P & Grover, L 2019, 'Organotypic culture of bone‐like structures using composite ceramic‐fibrin scaffolds', Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology, vol. 48, no. 1, e79. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpsc.79

Hughes, E, Parkes, A, Williams, R, Jenkins, M & Grover, L 2019, 'Formulation of a covalently bonded hydroxyapatite and poly(ether ether ketone) composite', Journal of Tissue Engineering, vol. 9, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041731418815570

Burton, HE, Burton, HE, Eisenstein, NM, Eisenstein, NM, Lawless, BM, Jamshidi, P, Segarra, MA, Addison, O, Shepherd, DET, Attallah, MM, Grover, LM & Cox, SC 2019, 'The design of additively manufactured lattices to increase the functionality of medical implants', Materials Science and Engineering C, vol. 94, pp. 901-908. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2018.10.052

Hill, LJ, Moakes, R, Butt, G, Brock, K, Vincent, R, Williams, R, Barnes, N, Wallace, G, Rauz, S, Logan, A & Grover, L 2018, 'Sustained release of decorin to the surface of the eye enables scarless corneal regeneration', npj Regenerative Medicine, vol. 3, 23. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41536-018-0061-4

Snow, M, Williams, R, Pagkalos, J & Grover, L 2018, 'An In Vitro study to determine the feasibility of combining bone marrow concentrate with BST-CarGel as a treatment for cartilage repair', Cartilage. https://doi.org/10.1177/1947603518812564

Cooke, ME, Lawless, BM, Jones, SW & Grover, LM 2018, 'Matrix degradation in osteoarthritis primes the superficial region of cartilage for mechanical damage', Acta Biomaterialia, vol. 78, pp. 320-328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2018.07.037

Review article

Lowther, M, Louth, S, Davey, A, Hussain, A, Ginestra, P, Carter, L, Eisenstein, N, Grover, L & Cox, S 2019, 'Clinical, industrial, and research perspectives on powder bed fusion additively manufactured metal implants', Additive Manufacturing, vol. 28, pp. 565-584.

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.