Professor Giuseppe Battaglia (GB) is an ICREA Research Professor leading a research group at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia since 2019. He is also an honorary professor at University College London and a visiting professor at the West China Hospital Medical School in Chengdu, affiliated with the Sichuan University. GB's multidisciplinary team consists of chemists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and biologists. They investigate how molecules, macromolecules, viruses, vesicles, and whole cells move through the physiological barriers of the human body. The team uses advanced microscopic tools with theoretical and computational physics to investigate biological transport phenomena at the molecular level, cell membranes, and entire organisms. The research group applies the knowledge gained to develop innovative medicines that combine soft matter physics and synthetic chemistry.
GB obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Sheffield and held various positions at the same university. He was an assistant professor from 2006 to 2009 in the Kroto Institute and then became an associate professor from 2009 to 2011 and a full professor from 2011 to 2022 in the Krebs Institute, which was part of the School of Bioscience. From 2011 to 2022, GB held the position of Professor of Molecular Bionic at University College London, where he was affiliated with various departments and institutes, including the Department of Chemistry, the Institute for Physics of Living Systems, the Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology, and the City of London Cancer Research UK Centre.
GB has received several awards, including the EPSRC Established Fellowship in 2016, the ERC Starting Grant in 2011, the Consolidator Award in 2018, and multiple proof-of-concepts awards. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers, and he has been involved as a named inventor in 14 patent applications. GB has received numerous accolades, including the HFSP Young Investigator Award in 2009, the APS/IoP Polymer Physics Exchange Award Lecture in 2011, the GSK Emerging Scientist Award in 2011, the Award for Special Contribution to Polymer Therapeutics in 2012, the RSC Thomas Graham Award Lecture in 2014, and the SCI/RSC McBain Medal for Colloid Science in 2015. In recognition of his significant contributions to the field, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017 and a fellow of the Institute for Materials, Minerals, and Mining in 2018. GB also founded Vianautis Bio Ltd, a biotech company in Cambridge, UK, specializing in gene therapy.