Investigators
Wenxin Wang
Investigator
wenxin.wang
ucd.ie
Wenxin Wang is a Full Professor and Research Ireland Principal Investigator at Charles Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin (UCD), and a member of UCD Academic Council. He holds a BSc, MSc, Ph.D., and FRSC. Prof. Wang’s scientific interests are in the areas of the development of multifunctional polymeric biomaterials, stem cell and gene therapy for the treatments of skin wounds, cartilage/bone regeneration, dental tissue regeneration, and tissue sealant/adhesive. He is the founder of three companies - Vornia Ltd (acquired by Ashland - a Fortune500 US company in 2018), Blafar Ltd and Branca Bunús Ltd.
Description/list of facilities/equipment available in the lab and institution: The chemistry lab in The Charles Institute is fully equipped with four fume hoods, two Schlenk lines with argon gas for polymer synthesis and four Agilent 1260 GPCs (three 1260-MDS modules running organic mobile phase and one 1260-RI module running aqueous mobile phase) for a wide range of molecular weight characterisation.
A diafiltration tangential flow device and a pilot scale freeze dryer are available for lab scale to pilot scale polymer purification. A Zeta Sizer is available for characterisation of the sizes and zeta potential of the newly synthesized polymers and polyplexes. The laboratory contains a core technology laboratory and two tissue culture laboratories, in addition to communal research areas including a PCR laboratory, imaging suite and histomorphology core.
The Charles Institute of Dermatology is closely associated with the UCD Conway Institute, and its core technologies offer the most comprehensive and advanced analysis platform for life sciences and biomedical research in Ireland. The Conway Institute provides Prof. Wang’s group full access to a number of core units combined with specialist equipment to perform interdisciplinary research activities: Microscopy - TEM, SEM, AFM, RAMAN, EDX, EDAX, Confocal microscopy and Fluorescent Microscopy; Materials Testing Equipment - DSC, FT-IR and ATR-IR, UV-vis as well as all the centralized equipment for polymer characterization at the Department of Chemistry, such as NMR, MALDI-TOF, Zeta potential, LC/GC - MS; DNA/Protein/Vector Analysis Lab Equipment: Real-Time PCR, Nanodrop, plate reader, luminometry and fluorescence capabilities, 2-D gel electrophoresis equipment and image analysis equipment.