Dr Mai was born and raised in Nha Trang, a beautiful coastal city in Vietnam. In 2011, he got his Bachelor of Engineering, specialized in organic chemistry, at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam. He completed his Master of Engineering in Polymer Science and Engineering at Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea in 2013. Since then, he has been always passionate about the potential of polymer chemistry to create advanced functional materials for biomedical applications. In 2017, he was awarded with his PhD in Nanochemistry from Italian Institute of Technology, Italy. His PhD thesis was mentored by Dr Teresa Pellegrino and focused on the application of living radical polymerization to synthesize multi-functional polymeric nanomaterials.

During the last 10 years, he has acquired deep knowledge and strong competence in advanced polymer chemistry and self-assembly, surface functionalization of nanoparticles and multi-functional nanomaterials for biomedical applications. His main research interests rely at the exploitation of living radical polymerization and click chemistry to prepare well-defined stimuli-responsive polymeric nanomaterials toward applications in biomedical field such as drug delivery and bio-imaging. He has participated in several European and national (Italy) projects on the development of novel nanomaterials for cancer treatment. He is the co-author and co-corresponding author of several peer-reviewed papers in high impact factor journals. He is the co-inventor of 3 patents and has served as referee for several peer-reviewed journals. He was the recipient of Travel grant for PepsiCo and New York Academy of Science STEM Symposium 2018 and the winner of First prize in the pitch challenge, Drug delivery, Micro- and Nano Sensors PhD Summer Schools, Denmark (2016).

During his ADMIRE Fellowship entitled POLYGHT, hosted by Dr Eduardo Ruiz-Hernandez (School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin), Dr Mai will develop a novel thermal responsive polymersomes structure to combine photothermal therapy and controlled drug delivery. The goal of POLYGHT is to realize the potential of such nanostructures to tackle glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most aggressive and deadly brain tumours.