My research interests are primarily related to biological membranes. Biological membranes are ubiquitous in all living organisms and have a wide range of applications in the biomedical, environmental and life sciences. The breadth of my research publications in areas as diverse as the mechanism of action of anti-cancer compounds, through to control mechanisms of phospholipid homeostasis, the plausibility of the existence of life on other planets, as well as studies characterising the physical behaviour of lipid-protein and lipid-DNA mixtures is a good demonstration of this diversity.

In recent years, my research has focused in two, more applied, science areas. These are, firstly, in vitro synthetic biology, using 3D printed devices to construct biosensors for on-demand biomolecule synthesis, which have for applications in vaccine production. And, secondly, understanding and modelling lipid composition changes in cells using lipidomics. 

Dr Dymond read chemistry at the University of Bath, before undertaking a PhD in membrane biophysics at the University of Southampton, graduating in 2002. His PhD project investigated the mechnism of action of a series of anti cancer compounds related to metelfosine. His first post-doctoral research position was also at the University of Southampton researching the role of lipids and membrane curvature elastic stress in the regulation of lipid interacting proteins. From 2005 to 2009 he was the technical project manager on the FP6 grant Neonuclei, one of the first in vitro synthetic biology project in Europe, which looked at using physical mechanisms to control gene transcription in simple synthetic analogues of cell nuclei. In 2010 he was appointed to senior research fellowship at the University of Southampton where he pioneered the use of data driven modelling as a bioinformatic method for analysing metabolomic lipid data, focused towards disentangling the regulatory mechanisms of phospholipid homeostasis. During this time, with colleagues at the University of Southampton he developled synthetic biology lecture modules and a scholarly interest in the ethics of synthetic biology.

In 2013 Dr Dymond was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Brighton, in addition to his research interests in lipidomics and membrane biophysics he has developed research interests in 3D printing spectrophotmetirc biosensors containing multiple enzymes and reaction pathways. He teaches physical chemistry and biophysics.

My approach to teaching combines lectures with problem based learning. I teach on a number of different courses at both undergraduate and Master's level. At lower levels i develop knowledge of physico-chemico processes and at higher levels I show how these underlying principles are critical to regulating function in biological systems and/ or molecular interactions.

Lipidomics has a wide range of applications in projects related to health, disease, food security and energy. I am particularly interested in supervising PhD students who have an interest in using lipidomics to tackle global challenges. Example lipid-related projects might investigate the mechanism of action of chemicals that target membranes e.g. alcohols, drug or other chemical toxins; antioxidant compounds that protect against oxidative stress for health, disease or food security applications; strategies for increasing lipid-based biofuel production; or lipid-based drug delivery systems. Please contact me if you wish to discuss making a PhD application in areas relating to lipidomics or 3D printing.