Biological and Chemical Sciences

Dr. Mai is an enthusiastic material chemist having 9 years of experience working on advanced polymer chemistry and self-assembly, surface functionalization of nanoparticles and multi-functional nanomaterials for biomedical applications. His main research interests focus on the exploitation of living radical polymerization and click chemistry to prepare well-defined stimuli-responsive polymeric nanomaterials/hydrogels toward applications in biomedical field such as drug delivery and cancer immunotherapy. His goal is to use advanced polymer chemistry to molecularly engineer polymeric materials, achieving a highly multi-functional materials with unprecedented and on-demand characteristics. During his career, Dr. Mai has participated in several European and national projects in Europe on the development of novel nanomaterials for cancer treatment. He had been awarded an ADMIRE-Marie Sk¿odowska-Curie Fellowship from November 1st, 2021, to October 31st, 2022) with a research grant focusing on the potential of combined photothermal therapy and controlled drug delivery in Glioblastoma treatment. In addition, he was the recipient of Travel grant for PepsiCo and New York Academy of Science STEM Symposium 2018 (2000 $) and the winner of First prize in the pitch challenge, Drug delivery, Micro- and Nano Sensors PhD Summer Schools, Denmark (2016). He is currently a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Biomaterials Chemistry with permanent at the School of Biological and Chemical Science, University of Galway.