Rate My Professor Martin Knight

Professor Martin Knight is a Professor of Mechanobiology in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, serving as Dean for Research in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. He earned a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bath, an MSc in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Surrey, and a PhD from the IRC in Biomedical Materials at Queen Mary University of London. In 2000, he was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship focused on cartilage mechanobiology and tissue engineering, which paved the way for his promotions to Reader in 2009 and Professor in 2012. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Knight has attracted over £18 million in research funding from sources including EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, the EU, Wellcome Trust, and various charities.

Knight's research centers on mechanobiology, investigating how cells and tissues respond to mechanical forces, with emphasis on primary cilia and organ-on-a-chip technologies. He directs the Queen Mary & Emulate Organs-on-chips Centre—the first of its kind in the UK—and co-directs the Centre for Predictive in vitro Models, having previously co-directed the UK Organ-on-a-chip Technologies Network. His work addresses diseases such as osteoarthritis, cancer, atherosclerosis, inflammation, and kidney disease, developing in vitro models for improved pre-clinical drug testing. Knight has authored over 120 peer-reviewed papers, including "Human coronary artery organ‐chip with circulating immune cells recapitulates anti‐inflammatory effect of pulsatile wall strain" (Hou et al., 2026, Interdisciplinary Medicine), "Multi-omics qualification of an organ-on-a-chip model of osteolytic bone metastasis" (Castro et al., 2025, Acta Biomaterialia), "Pulsatile low shear stress increases susceptibility to endothelial inflammation via upregulation of IFT and activation of YAP" (Hou et al., 2025, APL Bioengineering), and "A Novel Primary Cilium‐Mediated Mechanism Through which Osteocytes Regulate Metastatic Behavior of Both Breast and Prostate Cancer Cells" (Verbruggen et al., 2023, Advanced Science). Additionally, he organizes teaching modules on Clinical Bioengineering: Applications in Urology, chairs the Council of the UK Biomedical Engineering Association since 2022, and contributes to policy on alternative testing methods.