The NBRG is located jointly at the University of Greenwich, London, UK and the Universita degli Studi di Urbino, Italy in the School of Science and the Istituto di Scienze Chimiche respectively.

Its work is multidisciplinary and involves postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students drawn from disciplines as diverse as molecular biology to materials science. It works in the general area of nanotechnology and its applications in biology and medicine.

Currently the group numbers 8 people: 3 postdoctoral research assistants, 3 research students a research technician and the group leader Ian Bruce, Professor of Molecular Biology. It frequently hosts visiting researchers and students from other laboratories.

Current main research themes are:

· Complex, composite, structured nanomaterials (nanoparticles), particularly those based upon silica and silica/magnetite composites. This work principally involves the synthesis and characterisation of nano- and micro-materials, amorphous and structured, porous and non porous.

· Surface chemistry and modification of the materials arising from the above research. This work principally involves surface activation through silanisation (including the design and synthesis of novel silanes) and subsequent grafting with useful ligands.

· Molecular genetics and biochemistry associated with mobile genetic elements and the genes contained thereon. Most particularly this has involved the discovery and characterisation of a novel transposon, associated hybrid insertion sequences (Tn5530 and IS1071::1471) and operons and coding sequences there present.

· Engineering for molecular biology

· The application of the outputs from above in molecular diagnostic and bioseparative processes.