Garry Laverty

Dr Garry Laverty is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy Queen's University Belfast. His Biofunctional Nanomaterials group develop self-assembling hydrogel platforms for biomedical applications based on peptide and their unnatural variants peptide-mimetics). These have huge potential within the fields of drug delivery and biomaterials, with the group's focus primarily on the development of sustained release systems (in situ forming injectable hydrogel depots) primarily for use in HIV/AIDs prevention combined with contraception. This system is also showing promise for use in conditions with medication adherence and drug delivery issues e.g. ocular use, cancer, tuberculosis, malaria, antipsychotics. Garry's work is funded by £1.5 million of competitive research funding from sources including: the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, Innovate UK and Invest NI. He has authored 53 publications relating to peptide materials and drug delivery. He also holds an interest in the application of neutron scattering techniques to define the microscopic properties of hydrogels, having been awarded substantial beam time by Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL, Grenoble) and UKRI Science Technology Facilities Council ISIS Neutron and Muon Source facilities.