Rate My Professor Matt Gibson

Matthew I. Gibson holds the Chair in Sustainable Biomaterials in the Department of Chemistry and Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Manchester. He earned a first-class honours MChem in Chemistry in 2003 and a PhD in polymer/organic chemistry in 2007 from the University of Durham, UK, followed by postdoctoral research at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland from 2007 to 2009. In 2009, Gibson established his independent research group at the University of Warwick as a Science City Research Fellow, advancing to Assistant Professor in 2012, Associate Professor in 2015, and Full Professor jointly appointed in Chemistry and Warwick Medical School in 2016. His team relocated to the University of Manchester in 2023. Gibson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2016 and the Higher Education Academy since 2015.

Gibson's research centers on biomaterials science to address global challenges in biotechnology, healthcare, and sustainability, with specializations in polymers mimicking antifreeze proteins for cryopreservation of biologics, glycobiology tools, low-cost diagnostics, and cell engineering. He has published over 195 papers, delivered more than 100 invited lectures, and filed multiple patents licensed to industry. Key publications include "Cryopreservation and Post-Thaw Differentiation of Monocytes Enabled by Macromolecular Cryoprotectants which Restrict Intracellular Ice Formation" (2025), "Label-Free and Microplate-Based Dissection of Glycan-Virus Interactions Using Polymer-Tethered Glyconanoparticles" (2025), and "Polymer-tethered glycosylated gold nanoparticles as versatile tools for bio-sensing" (2026). Notable awards encompass European Research Council Starting Grant (2015-2020) and Consolidator Grant (2020-2025), Royal Society of Chemistry Corday-Morgan Medal (2024), Horizon Prize in Chemical Biology (2022), McBain Medal (2021), and Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Prize (2018). He co-founded Cryologyx Ltd in 2021 as Chief Technical Officer to commercialize cryopreservation technology and held a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with GE Healthcare/Cytiva from 2019 to 2023. Previously at Warwick, he directed the MRC iCASE PhD program in interdisciplinary biomedical research.