Giuseppe is a Professor of Healthcare Materials at the University of Leeds (UoL), where he holds a joint appointment in the Schools of Design and Dentistry. He has a 15-year academic background in both polymer science and medical device development. He has over 10 years’ experience in biopolymer-based materials, preclinical testing and product scale-up (including a PhD in Materials in Life Sciences).

He co-developed HyFaCol and is a globally recognised expert in the field of biomaterials, having published over 45 peer-reviewed papers and delivered invited talks at multiple international organisations and conferences.

David is a Professor of Biomaterials and was Director of Research and Innovation at UoL Dental School between 2014-2022; prior to this he was Director of Knowledge Transfer and Enterprise and a Yorkshire Forward funded Knowledge Transfer Champion. As an academic with 30 years of biomaterials science background, he co-developed HyFaCol.

With >120 peer reviewed outputs and 7 patents filed or granted, he has worked with industry for over 25 years on developing and testing innovative biomedical materials and supervising PhD students in additive manufacturing and digital imaging; he sits as Chair of the Advisory Board for Mimetrik Solutions Ltd, another UoL spin-out.

Stephen is Director of the Clothworkers’ Centre of Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH), and Professor and Director of Leeds Institute of Textiles & Colour (LITAC) at UoL. He has over 20 years’ experience developing industrially scalable manufacturing routes for medical textile devices, including advanced woundcare products based on fibrous nonwoven hydrogels, in collaboration with the world’s largest healthcare companies.

He has over 250 technical publications, including multiple patents, many of which relate to the manufacturing of fibres and fabrics, incorporating new polymer science for various medical applications. He is also Co-founder and Group Technical Director of NIRI Ltd, a global technical consultancy company specialising in nonwovens.

Alyn is a HYFACOL Limited Founder, Director and a Senior Clinical Fellow in Restorative Dentistry at UoL with 25 years dental industry experience. He was a partner in one of the UK’s largest dental practices, exiting the business at an industry-leading multiple. He is involved in the development of national dental policy as a board member of two national dental societies and is a KOL for two multinational dental manufacturing companies.

He has co-founded two technology companies which have raised over £5m in venture capital and grant funding and brought several highly complex technology solutions from initial concept through to the point of market launch as well as negotiating high value commercial development and licensing contracts with global healthcare companies.

Joanna is a Research Scientist at HYFACOL. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and has subsequently worked in an academic postdoctoral role and gained industrial experience working in a large chemical manufacturing company.

Joanna’s research spanned several fields such as synthetic chemistry, surface chemistry and engineering, materials science, microbiology, and electrochemistry and she has  worked on the surface functionalization of carbon materials toward biomedical and catalytic applications. She is the co-author of 14 peer-reviewed papers.