Sarah is prominent in the UK Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (www.tces.org) and is currently President (elected) on this important national society. She was council member (elected) on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (European Chapter) TERMIS EU 2012-15. She was a core review panel member for UK Biotechnology and biological sciences research council (panel meets every 3 months) 2011-16. In addition she is an external evaluating panel member and UK expert advisor to the European Union as a member of The European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) in the ‘Biomedicine and Molecular Biosciences’ Domain. She has been a previous editorial board international member for ‘Biomaterials’ journal and is currently associate editor for ‘Journal of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering’, an editorial board member for ‘Open Biomaterials’ journal, ‘ISRN Mechanical Engineering’ and for ‘World Journal of Orthopaedics’.

Research Group(s)

• Biomaterials

Sarah is currently Head of the Department of Materials which is home to nearly 2,000 students and staff. She is a member of the School of Natural Science’s senior management team and is a currently elected Senate member for The University of Manchester. She was the UK Biomedical Materials champion for The Royce Institute of a £235million UK government investment for advanced materials since April 2017 until April 2021. In this activity she has created an interaction of a 200 strong stakeholder working group of UK academics and industry. She has prepared and led community day and strategic working group meetings. In this role she has led the creation of UK landscape activity in the biomedical materials area and has liaised with many UK and international academics and industry. These internationally leading biomaterials activities fits well into the TERMIS tissue engineering scaffold and advanced therapeutics research. Sarah was also the Faculty of Science and Engineering lead for the University of Manchester’s ‘Advanced Materials in Medicine @ Manchester’ activity 2018-19.

Sarah was appointed Professor of Bioengineering at The University of Manchester in 2014 in the School of Materials after joining Manchester in 2010. She received a B.Eng. in Materials Science with Clinical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Clinical Engineering from The University of Liverpool in 1996 and 2000, respectively and then furthered her studies at GeorgiaTech, Atlanta for two years as a postdoctoral research fellow. She joined Keele University in 2002 where she continued her postdoctoral studies until obtaining a Lecturership and then a Senior Lecturer position in orthopaedic tissue engineering in 2008.

Sarah has been awarded 51 grants, >£12.7million of grants as lead PI and >£22million as both PI and CI from 22 different competitive sources ranging from government, charity and industry. She is elected President of the UK Tissue and Cell Engineering Society and an outreach committee member of The Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society; EU chapter. She has over 70 publications with over 3400 citations, 180 published abstracts and has given over 40 invited keynotes in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. All these publications have a common theme of orthopaedic engineering with a particular focus on X-Ray evaluation of tissue engineering constructs and biomaterials and the response of orthopaedic cells to a variety of stimuli such as mechanical forces, electrical stimulus, statins and a variety of different novel materials to support their growth into the correct tissue type/shape. 

She is a review panel member for the government funding such as the BBSRC, MRC and Innovate UK and has been an external evaluating panel member and UK expert advisor to the European Union as a member of The European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) in the ‘Biomedicine and Molecular Biosciences’ Domain. She is also a reviewer for ERC, EU H2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie AwardIndividual Fellowships and Integrated Training Networks, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Irish Research Council, Czech Science Foundation and Israel Science Foundation.She has been a previous editorial board international member for ‘Biomaterials’ journal and is currently associate editor for ‘Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM)’ and an editorial board member for ‘World Journal of Orthopaedics’.

• Translation of novel tendon repair products
• Influence of mechanical force application on human mesenchymal stem cell differentiation
• Design of a novel co-culture bioreactor for osteochondral tissue-engineered plugs
• Use of statins for influencing osteoblast proliferation and differentiation
• Validation of fluid flow characteristics in a Perfusion Bioreactor (for Bone Tissue Growth and cell seeding optimisation)
• Use of electrical stimulating regimes to influence stem cell proliferation and differentiation for tissue engineering purposes
• Ligament tissue engineering