Rongjun Chen

Rongjun Chen is Professor of Biomaterials Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior to that, he did his PhD on polymeric drug delivery (2003-2007) as well as his postdoctoral work first on lyophilisation of pharmaceuticals and then on manufacture of clinical-grade lentiviral vectors for gene therapy (2006-2009), in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge.

He started his tenure-track academic position as Group Leader and BHRC Senior Translational Research Fellow at the University of Leeds in Oct 2009. He moved to Imperial College London as Lecturer in May 2013 and was then promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2016, Reader in Biomaterials Engineering in 2019, and Professor of Biomaterials Engineering in 2022.

His areas of research comprise engineering of biomaterials for biomedical applications, with focuses on: (1) design, synthesis and manufacturing of polymers, lipids and bio-functional nanomaterials for targeted delivery of active pharmaceutical agents through fundamental understanding of their transport processes across extracellular and intracellular barriers; and (2) biomedical applications for targeted nanomedicine, thermostable RNA vaccine formulation, cell and gene therapy.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

• Kaur A, Darvill D, Xiang S, et al., 2023, Development of nanopackaging for storage and transport of loaded lipid nanoparticles, Nano Letters, ISSN:1530-6984, Pages:1-8
• Li X, Duan Z, Chen X, et al., 2023, Impairing Tumor Metabolic Plasticity via a Stable Metal‐Phenolic‐Based Polymeric Nanomedicine to Suppress Colorectal Cancer, Advanced Materials, ISSN:0935-9648
• Zhang Y, Zhou J, Chen X, et al., 2023, Modulating tumor-stromal crosstalk via a redox-responsive nanomedicine for combination tumor therapy, Journal of Controlled Release, Vol:356, ISSN:0168-3659, Pages:525-541
• Chen S, Morrison G, Liu W, et al., 2022, A pH-responsive, endosomolytic liposome functionalized with membrane-anchoring, comb-like pseudopeptides for enhanced intracellular delivery and cancer treatment, Biomaterials Science, Vol:10, ISSN:2047-4830, Pages:6718-6730
• Huang Y, Jiang J, Ren J, et al., 2022, A fibrinogen-mimicking, activated-platelet-sensitive nanocoacervate enhances thrombus targeting and penetration of tissue plasminogen activator for effective thrombolytic therapy., Advanced Healthcare Materials, Vol:11, ISSN:2192-2640, Pages:1-17
• Zheng X, Pan D, Zhu G, et al., 2022, A Dendritic Polymer‐Based Nanosystem Mediates Drug Penetration and Irreversible Endoplasmic Reticulum Stresses in Tumor via Neighboring Effect, Advanced Materials, Vol:34, ISSN:0935-9648, Pages:2201200-2201200
• Gu L, Duan Z, Chen X, et al., 2022, A transformable amphiphilic and block polymer-dendron conjugate for enhanced tumor penetration and retention with cellular homeostasis perturbation via membrane flow., Advanced Materials, Vol:34, ISSN:0935-9648, Pages:1-14