Welcome to the Nanomedicines Symposium 2025
DISCOUNTS are available for APS Members and the British Society of Nanomedicine Members
Exhibitors
VectorBuilder is a rapidly growing biotechnology organisation. Our revolutionary online Vector Design Studio has become popular with researchers around the world for its rich functionalities and highly intuitive user interface.
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Organising Committee
Click on the name blocks below to read Organising Committee bios:
Professor Steve Conlan
Professor R. Steven Conlan PhD FRSB, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Reproductive Biology and Gynaecological Oncology, Programme Director Swansea University, Houston Methodist Academic Institute joint PhD scheme, Swansea University Medical School, UK
Steve Conlan FRSB is Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, Swansea University Medical School, with over 25 years of experience in biomedical research and higher education.
Prof Conlan is involved in the leadership of several organisations; Chair of the Board of Trustees of the British Society of Nanomedicine, and Co-Vice Chair of the European Technology Platform – Nanomedicine. He is programme board member, and research and innovation group chair, for two national precision medicine initiatives; Advanced Therapies Wales and Genomics Partnerships Wales, and is a CReSt: cancer research strategy for Wales delivery group member.
His university research focuses on the development of advanced therapeutics; Antibody Drug Conjugates, exosomes, and nanoparticle deliver systems, and understanding disease processes using functional genomics.
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Professor Elaine Ferguson
Professor Elaine Ferguson, Professor in Polymer Therapeutics, School of Dentistry, Cardiff University, UK
Elaine graduated from the University of Manchester with a Master of Pharmacy degree in 2003, before completing a PhD with Prof Ruth Duncan at Cardiff University’s Welsh School of Pharmacy in 2008, in which she developed a bioresponsive polymer-phospholipase conjugate for the treatment of breast cancer. This research initiated Elaine’s long-standing interest in using natural biodegradable polymers as novel carriers for bioactive agents. Having demonstrated the feasibility of bioresponsive polymer therapeutics in cancer, Elaine joined Cardiff University’s School of Dentistry, where her interests focused on exploring new clinical applications, including chronic wound healing, infection and spinal cord injury. Her ongoing research aims to optimise drug release by attachment of biodegradable polysaccharides to protein and peptide drugs, in order to direct them to sites of inflammation, thereby minimising toxicity, overcoming resistance and increasing bioavailability.
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Arwyn T. Jones
Arwyn T. Jones, Professor of Membrane Traffic and Drug Delivery, School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Arwyn obtained his PhD, under the supervision of Sir Tom Blundell, in protein crystallography at Birkbeck College, University of London. He then undertook postdoctoral research on endocytosis at the University of Liverpool, Harvard University and EMBL Heidelberg- as EMBO and Alexander von Humboldt fellow. Following a BBC Scholarship to gain a Diploma in Journalism at Bangor University he was appointed as lecturer at the Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University. There, he is now Professor of Membrane Traffic and Drug Delivery and Director for Research Innovation and Engagement
His research falls under themes of cancer cell biology, endocytosis and drug delivery, all of which aim to enhance our capacity to deliver small molecule drugs and biopharmaceuticals to defined regions of cells. He has published >100 papers and throughout his career he has collaborated with a long list of national and international academic groups, SMEs and major companies. He currently sits as Editorial Board member of J. Controlled Release and Membranes. Arwyn is also extremely proactive in public engagement with science, organising small and large science exhibitions locally in Cardiff and across Wales- see home page for details.
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Speakers and Moderators
Click on the name blocks below to read Speakers and Moderators bios:
CLIFT, Martin
GRECO, Fran
GUMBLETON, Mark
HOOD, Kerry
JONES, Robert
Marianne Ashford
Marianne Ashford, Senior Principal Scientist, Advanced Drug Delivery, Pharmaceutical Sciences, R & D, AstraZeneca, UK
Marianne Ashford is a Senior Principal Scientist in a global role in Advanced Drug Delivery Department within Pharmaceutical Sciences at AstraZeneca. Marianne is responsible for applying drug delivery approaches to enable the progression of innovative medicines and is working to enable novel targets through targeting and intracellular delivery. She has been instrumental in introducing nanomedicines the AstraZeneca portfolio. She has initiated several collaborations and the building of the internal capability in nanomedicines, drug targeting and intracellular delivery receiving several internal awards for this work.
Previously Marianne held line management roles including leading a Preformulation and Biopharmaceutics Group and project management roles leading pharmaceutical teams and influencing the global product strategy of various AstraZeneca oncology compounds.
Marianne has published over 70 peer reviewed papers and reviews, six book chapters and holds several patents. Marianne holds Honorary Professor roles at the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester. She has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award and is a Fellow of the Controlled Release Society. Marianne has served on numerous academic and industrial scientific committees and advisory boards in the field of drug delivery. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Journal of Controlled Release.
Marianne is passionate about using her scientific knowledge and experience to improve therapies for patients and applying drug delivery science to enable medicines of the future.
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Alessio Malfanti
Alessio Malfanti, Associate Professor, University of Padova, Italy
Alessio Malfanti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences at the University of Padova, Italy. After his Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (110/110 cum laude, University of Torino, Italy), he earned his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Padova (Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Caliceti. In 2017, he worked as a PhD visiting student at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel) in the lab of Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, working on siRNA delivery systems. In 2018, he moved to the Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe (Valencia, Spain) in the Polymer Therapeutics Lab led by Dr. Maria J. Vicent, focusing his work on polymer therapeutics as drug delivery tools applied to anticancer immunotherapy. In 2020, he was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at the Louvain Drug Research Institute, University of Louvain (Bruxelles, Belgium) in the research group coordinated by Prof. Veronique Préat, leveraging the use of polymer therapeutics for the local immunotherapy of Glioblastoma.
His multidisciplinary research laboratory aims to understand the biological rationale of diseases for the design of advanced polymeric nanomedicines suitable for transfer into clinical testing. To do so, he works at the interface among polymer chemistry, nanomedicine, molecular biology, and immunology. Recently, his work has focused on developing polymeric conjugates for cancer immunotherapy, vaccine development, and synergistic combination therapy to treat melanoma, unresectable and post-operative glioblastoma and cancer brain metastasis.
He was awarded the prestigious ERC-Starting grant (2024, €1.5M) and STARS@Unipd (2024, €175K). His scientific achievements were acknowledged by the inclusion as an invited speaker in several national and international conferences (among the others: 14th World Meeting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, Vienna [Austria, March 18-21th 2024]; 12th Galenus Workshop: Bioengineering the future of drug delivery, Porto [Portugal, March 26-27th 2025], 6th AMYC-BIOMED 2025, Palermo [Italy, June 23-25th 2025]. Currently, he has published 38 peer-reviewed papers, has 850 citations, and an H-index of 16.
Publications:
– Moura LI, Malfanti A*, Matos AI, Peres C, Armiñán A, Duro-Castaño A, Conejos-Sánchez I, Medel M, Đorđević S, Carrascosa P, Carreira B, Acúrcio RC, Xavier-Ferreira H, Hernández-Barranco A, Castellano E, Roselló E, Machado JC, Peinado H, Vicent MJ, Florindo HF. Off-The-Shelf Multivalent Nanoconjugate Cancer Vaccine Rescues Host
Immune Response against Melanoma. Adv Mater. 2025 Apr;37(16):e2417348. doi: 10.1002/adma.202417348. Epub 2025 Feb 12. PMID: 39937158; PMCID: PMC12016742.
– Chellen T, Bausart M, Maus P, Vanvarenberg K, Limaye N, Préat V, Malfanti A#
. In situ administration of STING-activating hyaluronic acid conjugate primes antiglioblastoma immune response. Mater Today Bio. 2024 Apr 16;26:101057. doi: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2024.101057. PMID: 38660475; PMCID: PMC11040137.
– Catania G, Rodella G, Vanvarenberg K, Préat V, Malfanti A#
. Combination of hyaluronic acid conjugates with immunogenic cell death inducer and CpG for glioblastoma local chemo-immunotherapy elicits an immune response and induces long-term survival.
Biomaterials. 2023 Mar;294:122006. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2023.122006. Epub 2023 Jan 21. PMID: 36701998.
*Co-first author
#corresponding author
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Professor Andrew Owen
Professor Andrew Owen PhD FRSB FLSW FBPhS, Professor in the Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT), University of Liverpool, UK
Andrew Owen is a Director of the Centre of Excellence in Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) at the University of Liverpool. He is principal investigator for LONGEVITY, an international project funded by Unitaid that aims to translate long-acting medicines for malaria, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis C Virus. Andrew also leads a modelling and simulation core and sits on the executive group for the NIH-funded Long-acting/Extended-release Antiretroviral resource Program (LEAP). He is a Director and CSO for Tandem Nano Ltd. and co-inventor of patents relating to drug delivery. Since March 2020, he has been intensively engaged in evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 antiviral candidates. He is a member of the Trial Management Group for the AGILE National phase I/IIa COVID-19 trial platform, and sits on the UK COVID-19 Therapeutics Advisory Panel (CTAP) antiviral and prophylaxis subgroups.
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Professor Alan Parker
Professor Alan Parker, Professor of Translational Virotherapies and Head of Solid Cancers, Cardiff University School of Medicine, UK
Alan is Professor of Translational Virology and Head of Solid Cancers based within Cardiff University School of Medicine. He leads the Viral ImmunoTherapies and Advanced therapeutics Laboratory (VITAL) – an expanding and talented group developing bespoke virotherapies for translational applications.
Alan holds a range of leadership positions. He holds a Cancer Research UK Programme grant, as well as multiple project grants funded by charities and UKRI. Alan was recently appointed a Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leader. He is CSO of Trocept Therapeutics (part of Accession Therapeutics Ltd) where he is overseeing the clinical translation of a lead virotherapy to clinic in the ATTEST clinical trial (https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN38972074). Alan is Head of Section of Solid Cancers within Cardiff University’s School of Medicine and co-director of the HCRW funded Wales Applied Virology Unit (WAVU). Alan also co-leads the immuno-oncology theme of the Cancer Research Strategy for Wales (CReSt) within the Wales Cancer Research Centre (WCRC). Finally, Alan is a board member of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy and was previously Treasurer for the society 2020-2024.
Alan’s PhD was in Gene Therapy from CRUK Institute for Cancer Studies at the University of Birmingham, and undergraduate degree in Genetics from The University of Sheffield.
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Dr Asha Patel
Dr Asha Patel, Associate Professor in Advanced Therapies, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, UK
The Patel group converges expertise in pharmaceutical chemistry, biomaterials and regenerative medicine to develop advanced therapies to restore tissue homeostasis during injury, cancer and infection. Asha graduated with a first class honours degree in Pharmacy from King’s College London. In 2014, she was awarded her PhD by the University of Nottingham investigating biomaterials for stem cell culture, and completed her post-doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she pioneered a platform for inhaled mRNA delivery to the lung.
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Symposium Venue
Cardiff University has a long and proud history, dating back to 1883 when it was founded as the University College of Wales. Today, Cardiff University is a leading research institution, with a global reputation for excellence. The Meeting will be located in the Redwood Building that houses the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. It is located near heart of the city and very close to the Principality Stadium that one day later (9th-11th of September) will host the APS 16th International PharmSci Conference.
Our thanks to Cardiff University and the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences for hosting this symposium.