Benjamin Lidster was born in North Yorkshire, UK, in 1987 and grew up in Wigan, before undertaking an undergraduate chemistry degree at The University of Manchester. After graduating in 2010 he continued his studies with a Ph.D in materials chemistry, under the supervision of Prof. Michael Turner, which focused on the synthesis and characterisation of both cyclic polymers and diblock copolymers which contained π-conjugated organic polymers (poly(p-phenylene vinylene)s). In 2012 he spent a short period of time working in the laboratory of Prof. Y. Tezuka and Dr. T. Yamamoto at The Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ōokayama, Tokyo, Japan. After finishing his studies in September 2014 he joined the start-up company; Chromition, with Prof. Michael Turner and Dr Mark McCairn. The company is interested in the development and commercialisation of functionalised conjugated polymer nanoparticles for application in; bio-imaging, anti-counterfeiting, lighting, photovoltaic cells and diagnostic sensors.