Sébastien Lecommandoux

Collège de France

Innovation technologique Liliane Bettencourt (2024-2025)

Année 2024-2025

Colloque - Advancing Biomaterials: Biomimetic and Biohybrid Innovations

Sébastien Lecommandoux : Biohybrid and Dynamic Polymersomes: from Precision Therapy to Artificial Cells

Sébastien Lecommandoux

Enseignant-chercheur au Laboratoire de chimie des polymères organiques, Bordeaux INP, professeur invité du Collège de France

Sébastien Lecommandoux

Collège de France

Innovation technologique Liliane Bettencourt (2024-2025)

Année 2024-2025

Colloque - Advancing Biomaterials: Biomimetic and Biohybrid Innovations

Molly Stevens : Designing and translating new materials for advanced therapies and disease detection

Molly Stevens

John Black Professor of Bionanoscience, University of Oxford

Résumé

This talk will present recent advances in therapeutic and biosensing materials, with a focus on translational pipelines for clinical application. We have developed scalable fabrication methods to create complex 3D architectures and biofunctionalized surfaces with spatially organized biochemical and topographical cues. Our delivery platforms include high-molecular-weight polymer carriers for saRNA therapeutics and photo-responsive nanoreactors inspired by circadian rhythms. We are also exploring bioinspired soft robotics for targeted, stimuli-responsive drug delivery.

In diagnostics, we are engineering functionalized nanoparticles for in vivo disease detection, including colorimetric nanoprobes for visual readouts and CRISPR-based, preamplification-free RNA detection (CrisprZyme). We have developed Raman microspectroscopy tools and machine learning techniques for hyperspectral unmixing, enabling the analysis of live-cell and organoid models and tracking nanomedicines in vivo.

A key innovation is our SPARTA™ platform, which enables high-throughput, label-free characterization of single nanoparticles, supporting the development of nanoparticle therapeutics and exosome diagnostics.

This talk will explore how these technologies are advancing biomedical innovation and how we are establishing translational pathways to bring them into the clinic—while striving to make healthcare solutions more accessible and equitable.

Molly Stevens

Professor Dame Molly Stevens FREng FRS is John Black Professor of Bionanoscience at the University of Oxford (Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and Institute of Biomedical Engineering) and part-time Professor at Imperial College London and the Karolinska Institute.

Professor Stevens' multidisciplinary research balances the investigation of fundamental science with the development of technologies and designer biomaterials to address some of the major healthcare challenges across diagnostics, advanced therapeutics and regenerative medicine. The impact of her work is recognised by numerous accolades, including the 2023 Novonordisk Prize.

Professor Stevens' work has a strong translational drive, focussed on translating scientific innovation into practical solutions to benefit patients and society. She is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of four spin-off companies in the diagnostics, advanced therapeutics, and regenerative medicine space. She has been recently appointed as Oxford University Champion for Women and Diversity in Entrepreneurships.

Sébastien Lecommandoux

Collège de France

Innovation technologique Liliane Bettencourt (2024-2025)

Année 2024-2025

Colloque - Advancing Biomaterials: Biomimetic and Biohybrid Innovations

Timothy J. Deming : Enhancing biomimicry via polypeptide side-chain modifications

Timothy J. Deming

Professeur, UCLA

Résumé

Our lab has pursued development of methods to allow selective incorporation of diverse functionality into synthetic polypeptide materials. Specifically, we have developed synthetic methods that allow a robust variety of modifications to nucleophilic thioether containing side-chains in both methionine and alkylated cysteine residues. Here we show such modifications can create synthetic polypeptides that can mimic environmentally responsive coacervate formation as has been observed in cytosolic proteins. We also show how modifications can be performed simultaneously on both segments of aqueous block copolymer assemblies resulting in materials that can respond to biologically relevant stimuli.

Timothy J. Deming

Timothy J. Deming received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine in 1989, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993. After a NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with David Tirrell, he joined the faculty in the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995. Here he held appointments in the Materials and Chemistry Departments where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999 and Full Professor in 2003. His appointment is now as Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering and Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California Los Angeles. He served as the Chairman of the Bioengineering Department at UCLA from 2006 to 2011. He is a leader in the fields of polypeptide synthesis, self-assembly of block copolypeptides, and use of polypeptides in biology, for which he has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the Materials Research Society, and the IUPAC Macromolecular Division. He is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and recently received the Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair Award. Professor Deming has a long track record of training students for performing ethical, rigorous research and for organizing their data for presentations and publications. He is active in the bioinspired materials community, recently served as an Associate Editor for Biomacromolecules, and has been an Editorial Advisory Board member for Macromolecular Bioscience, Soft Matter, Macromolecules, and Biopolymers.