Ipsita Roy

Ipsita Roy is a British-Indian materials scientist who is a professor at the University of Sheffield. Her research considers natural polymers of bacterial origin for medical applications. She was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences in 1997 and serves as the Editor of the Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology.

Early life and education Roy was an undergraduate student Delhi University. She was awarded a Inlaks Scholarship and the Overseas Research Students Award to complete her doctoral research at the University of Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge, she was awarded the Churchill College Fellowship and the University of Cambridge Philosophical Society Fellowship. Roy was a postdoctoral student at the University of Minnesota, where she worked in fatty acid synthesis.

Roy investigates polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), biocompatible, biodegradable polymers that are produced by bacteria. This makes PHAs useful for medical applications such as tissue engineering and wound healing.

Roy has worked alongside Sian Harding, Carolyn Carr and Molly Stevens at Imperial College London on the design of cardiac patches based on PHAs as platforms for cell engraftment and the controlled delivery of pharmaceuticals using PHA microspheres.

Selected publications