Nine academic, industrial and medical organisations are working together to train 15 PhD researchers in the development of drug-free antibacterial materials for medical applications, such as wound care,  medical implants, and other hospital products.  The scheme includes €4m funding support from the European Commission. The group met with the recently recruited cohort of researchers in February 2016 at Politecnico di Torino to discuss the detail of each project and initiate the scientific and industrial training programmes, integral aspects of HyMedPoly.

Dr Xiang Zhang, Royal Society Industry Fellow, Head of Medical Materials and Devices at Lucideon and co-ordinator of the HyMedPoly project, said:

"The meeting in Turin was an excellent opportunity to meet the early stage researchers.  We were all impressed by their enthusiasm for developing new antibacterial materials and technologies and the expert knowledge and experience that they will bring to the project.  I am genuinely excited to see our plans turning into practical activities and look forward to seeing the project's progress."

HyMedPoly is part of the European Commission's initiative to develop European Industrial Doctorates that combine research knowledge with business acumen.  This project brings nine organisations together:

• Lucideon Limited, United Kingdom, Project Coordinator
• University of Westminster, United Kingdom, Scientific Coordinator
• Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
• Vornia Limited, Ireland
• University of Southampton, United Kingdom
• Universitätsklinikum Knappschaftskrankenhaus Bochum, Germany
• Tekniker, Spain
• Eurescom, Germany.

The four-year long project, 'Drug-Free Antibacterial Hybrid Biopolymers for Medical Applications', HyMedPoly, is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 643050.