Spyridon Varlas

University of Sheffield

Research Associate

Armes Group

Bio: Dr. Spyridon Varlas holds a B.Sc. (Chemistry) and an M.Sc. (Polymer Science) from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Spyridon received his Ph.D. (Chemistry) from the University of Birmingham, working on polymerization-induced self-assembly of bio-mimicking polymersomes with tunable membrane properties under the supervision of Prof. Rachel K. O’Reilly. He then joined the group of Prof. Giuseppe Battaglia at University College of London (UCL) as a Research Fellow and, currently, he is a Research Associate within the group of Prof. Steven P. Armes at the University of Sheffield. Spyridon has received the Macro Group UK 2020 Jon Weaver Prize, the 2021 Katharine Burr Blodgett Award, the 2020/21 Zouhair Atassi PhD Prize and has been recently selected as a 2022 PMSE Future Faculty Scholar.

2022-08 Abstract Title: Tuning the Membrane Properties of Functional Polymersomes

Abstract Body: This work explored novel methodologies for tuning the physicochemical membrane characteristics of functional polymersomes developed via aqueous polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA) for studying communication and transport mechanisms within or between these nanocompartments, mediated either via passive diffusion of small molecules across selectively permeable membranes of catalytic nanoreactors or via intervesicular fusion events, and may set the groundwork for future studies in cell-mimicry, biocatalysis, and therapeutics delivery.