Alexander Mason

1. Artificial cells 

This project utilizes the self-assembly chemically accessible materials such as block copolymers and proteins to construct complex systems that begin to resemble the natural cell in both structure and function, or so called “protocells”. The de novo synthesis of a cell will undoubtedly have significant impacts on our knowledge of the natural cell and lead to the development of “living” technology, but will also contribute to understanding the precise chemical conditions required for the origin of life. There is significant scope for expansion of this project, for example exploring communication between populations of protocells and using these protocells as a framework to study membrane proteins. 

2. Nanomedicine

The delivery of nanoscopically “large” objects to the cytosol of the cell is not a trivial task if you want to avoid the low pH environment of the endo-/lysosomal pathway. Polymersomes present an ideal system for cytosolic delivery as we can significantly alter their surface chemistry and design delivery pathways for sensitive cargoes such as protein drugs.