The world around us is made from carbohydrates.

Over millenia, Nature has used this abundant and renewable building block to generate more than 550 gigatons of living matter (which we ascribe to as "biomass"), imparting functions that we as materials chemists can only fathom of creating.

From the impact-resistant club of the mantis shrimp to the brilliant colours of jewel beetles and the stickiness of plant mucilage, biological systems assemble polysaccharides into materials with extraordinary functions. 

Our research seeks to harness these same building blocks: cellulose, chitin and starch, to develop the next generation of sustainable nanomaterials. We investigate how nanoscale structure, colloid chemistry, and self-assembly can be controlled to create functional materials for applications ranging from biomedical composites and optical materials to bioinspired technologies. 

By combining green chemistry methodologies such as mechanochemistry with fundamental materials chemistry, we aim to both expand the capabilities of natural biopolymers beyond those found in nature and develop cleaner, more sustainable routes to advanced materials.