Rate My Professor Adam Martin

Adam Martin is an Adjunct Fellow in the Macquarie Medical School at Macquarie University, where he leads the Peptides and Proteins Group within the Dementia Research Centre. He completed his PhD in Supramolecular Chemistry from the University of Western Australia in 2011, investigating the self-assembly of phosphonic acid calixarenes under Professor Colin Raston. Martin's career includes postdoctoral research at the University of Nottingham from 2011 to 2013 and at the University of New South Wales from 2013 to 2016, followed by roles as Research Fellow and Lecturer at UNSW from 2016 to 2018. He holds an ongoing position as Adjunct Lecturer at UNSW and joined Macquarie University in 2019. His contributions have been recognized with the NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Fellowship in 2016, the Young Investigator Highlights Award in 2018, and selection as the RACI NSW Nyholm Youth Lecturer for 2019/2020.

Martin's research specializes in structure-property relationships for short, self-assembling peptides, tuning chemical and mechanical properties of hydrogels via peptide sequence and N-terminus modifications, and rational design of biocompatible hydrogel scaffolds for tissue engineering that support various cell types, including sensitive primary neurons. He develops 3D neuronal cell culture scaffolds to gain insights into neurodegenerative diseases, functionalizes hydrogels with ECM-ligating peptides for macromolecule capture, explores self-assembling short peptides as transfection reagents, and controls temporal hydrogel scaffold degradation for cell profiling. Key publications include 'Hydrogels with intrinsic antibacterial activity prepared from naphthyl anthranilamide (NaA) capped peptide mimics' (Scientific Reports, 2022), 'Lanthanide-based β-tricalcium phosphate upconversion nanoparticles as an effective theranostic nonviral vectors for image-guided gene therapy' (Nanotheranostics, 2022), 'Recent progress in synthetic self-adjuvanting vaccine development' (Biomaterials Science, 2022), 'A dendronised polymer architecture breaks the conventional inverse relationship between porosity and mechanical properties of hydrogels' (Chemical Communications, 2021), and contributions to the 'Global root traits (GRooT) database' (Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2021).