My research interests address two distinct grand challenges:

1) healthcare, by developing future therapies that will minimise the economic and social burden of an aging population;

2) food and nutrition for health, by advancing clean meat technologies that ultimately will enable  a radical shift away from factory farmed animal products.

01/2017 - present: Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

01/2014 - 12/2017: Postdoctoral research associate, BBSRC BRIC, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Associate Member of the IChemE (AMIChemE)

Biotechnology Letters - editorial board

Journal of Biotechnology 

Foods

Processes

Biochemical Engineering Subject Interest Group (BESIG) IChemE - Committee Member and Travel Awards Secretary

BY2BT2 - Biotechnology - Module leader (level 5)

BY3BT1 - Bioprocessing of Therapeutics - Module leader (level 6)

BE3BRM - Biotechnology and Regenerative Medicine - Module leader (level 6)

BI4110/BI4ABT - Applied Biotechnology - Module leader (level 7)

Current funding:

• PI on The Good Food Institute (https://www.gfi.org/researchgrants ) – ‘Advancing the production of clean beef towards commercialisation’; $210,088; 18 months; Co-I – Prof Christopher J Hewitt; Awarded March 2019.
• Co-I on BBSRC (BB/S00324X/1)- ‘Active Extracellular Vesicles – defining a novel, extracellular metabolic compartment and its role in the control of inflammation’; £766,218; 36 months; PI: Prof Andrew Devitt; Awarded June 2018.
• Member of the operational group - Equality and Diversity working group on the EPSRC Joint Centre for Doctoral Training in Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine (EP/S008950/1) (https://lifetime-cdt.org/); PI: Prof MJ Dalby; Awarded April 2019.

Previous funding:

• Project manager on Horizon 2020 project (grant agreement 667932) - ‘AUTOSTEM - Development of closed, scalable and AUTOmated robotic systems for therapeutic STEM cell manufacturing: aseptic systems from Donor-to-Patient’; ~£500k; 36 months; PI: Dr Q Rafiq; Co-I: Prof CJ Hewitt and Em. Prof AW Nienow.

• 2019 – Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• 2018 – 1^st prize Speakers Corner awarded by the European Federation of Biotechnology at the Bioprocess Engineering Course, Bol, Brac, Croatia
• 2017 – 1^st EBTNA award for Best Oral presentation at the European Biotechnology Congress, Dubrovnik, Croatia
• 2017 – 3^rd prize for Best Poster at the 1^st Eppendorf Stem Cell Community Day, Hamburg, Germany
• 2015 – Invited speaker at the Cell Therapy Manufacturing and Gene Therapy Congress, RAI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 2012 -Best Oral Contribution at the XX International Conference on Bioencapsulation, Orillia, Ontario, Canada
• 2010 – Full bursary for “Roche Continents” Arts and Science, Salzburg, Austria
• 2009 - Full PhD scholarship, EPSRC DTC in Regenerative Medicine, UK

I am currently accepting and looking for PhD candidates interested in the clean meat (or cellular agriculture) field for a start in October 2020. If interested, please get in touch!

Current PhD students:

• Mr Fritz de la Raga - 'Bioprocess development for production of neural precursor cells from iPSCs'
• Ms Megan Boseley - 'Scale Up and In-Vitro Testing of Exosomes for Regenerative Medicine Applications'

I am interested and opened for collaborations in any of the following research areas: bioprocessing of stem cells, scale-up, clean meat (cellular agriculture).

Tel: +44 (0) 121 204 3161
Email: m.hanga@aston.ac.uk
Room: MB433F