| Welcome Address |
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The Hon Jillian Skinner MP, NSW Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research |
| Plenary Speakers |
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John Mattick AO FAA FRCPA is the Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He did his undergraduate and postgraduate training at the University of Sydney and Monash University, respectively. He subsequently worked at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, at the CSIRO Division of Molecular Biology in Sydney, and for many years at the University of Queensland, where he was the Foundation Director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Australian Genome Research Facility. During this time he also spent periods as visiting research fellow at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Cologne and Strasbourg. His scientific honours include Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, the inaugural Gutenberg Professorship of the University of Strasbourg, the 2011 IUBMB Medal, the 2012 HUGO Chen Award for Distinguished Achievement in Human Genetic and Genomic Research, Membership of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, and Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science.
Presentation Title: The hidden layer of regulatory RNA in human development
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Heather D Maynard received a BS with Honors in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 and a MS in Materials Science in 1995 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her PhD from the California Institute of Technology was awarded in the summer of 2000. She then moved to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), where from 2000-2002 she was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr Maynard joined the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor in August 2002 as the first Howard Reiss Career Development Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and as a member of the California NanoSystems Institute. She is now a full Professor and Director of the Chemistry Biology Interface Training Program. Since arriving at UCLA, Maynard has given over 155 invited lectures. Maynard has been selected as an Outstanding Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry and has received the Amgen New Faculty Award, NSF Career Award, Seaborg Award for Outstanding Research, the Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in Teaching, and an Alfred P Sloan Fellowship. Maynard is a Leverhulme, Kavli Frontiers, and Royal Society of Chemistry Fellow. Maynard is on the editorial board of Polymer Chemistry and on the editorial advisory boards of Macromolecules, Biomacromolecules, J. of Polymer Chemistry, Langmuir, Maromolecular Biosciences, and Bioconjugate Chemistry. Her research interests focus on combining polymers with biomolecules for applications in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and medicine.
Presentation Title: Polymers that Increases the Stability of Protein and siRNA Nanomedicines
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Dr Scott McNeil serves as the Director of the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) for SAIC-Frederick and the National Cancer Institute at Frederick (NCI-Frederick), where he coordinates preclinical characterization of nanotech cancer therapeutics and diagnostics. At the NCL, Dr. McNeil leads a team of scientists responsible for testing candidate nanotech drugs and diagnostics, evaluating safety and efficacy, and assisting with product development -- from discovery-level, through scale-up and into clinical trials. NCL has assisted in characterization and evaluation of more than 250 nanotechnology products, several of which are now in human clinical trials. Dr. McNeil is a member of several working groups on nanomedicine, environmental health and safety, and other nanotechnology issues. He is an invited speaker to numerous nanotechnology-related conferences and has several patents pending related to nanotechnology and biotechnology. He also directs SAIC-Frederick's Imaging and Nanotechnology Group (ING), and is a Vice President of SAIC-Frederick.
Prior to establishing the NCL, he served as a Senior Scientist in the Nanotech Initiatives Division at SAIC where he transitioned basic nanotechnology research to government and commercial markets. He advises industry and State and US Governments on the development of nanotechnology and is a member of several governmental and industrial working groups related to nanotechnology policy, standardization and commercialization. Dr. McNeil's professional career includes tenure as an Army Officer, with tours as Chief of Biochemistry at Tripler Army Medical Center, and as a Combat Arms officer during the Gulf War. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Portland State University and his doctorate in cell biology from Oregon Health Sciences University.
Presentation Title: In Vitro / In Vivo Correlations: Lessons Learned from NCI's Nanotechnology Characterization Lab
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María J. Vicent is the Head of the Polymer Therapeutics at Príncipe Felipe Research Center. After a PhD in material sciences between Castellón (Spain, Luis’ Lab) and UC Berkeley (USA, Frechet’s Lab), a Marie Curie funded postdoc in Prof Duncan’s Lab (Cardiff UK) and one-year research associate position through a Marie Curie Reintegration contract at CIPF (Valencia Spain); she was appointed as principal investigator in June 2006 to build the first Polymer Therapeutics Lab in Spain. She has published more than 60 papers and book’s chapters, 2 editorials and she is a named inventor in 7 patents 3 of them already licensed. In 2012, she co-founded a Spin Off company named ‘Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions S.L.’ based on a family patent from her own group. María was awarded with the ‘Idea Award’ from ‘Fundación de las Artes y las Ciencias’ for her ‘Polymer-based combination therapy’ approach in June 2008. She is the President of the Spanish-Portuguese Chapter of the Controlled Release Society and is chairing the Polymer Therapeutics Symposium: from Lab to Clinic, one of the most recognized conferences in the field.
Presentation Title: Polymer Conjugates as Nano-sized Medicines
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Professor Xiaohu Gao received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2004, and his postdoctoral training from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. He became a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering and the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington, Seattle in 2005. His research is focused on biomedical nanotechnology, molecular engineering and optical imaging. He has authored or co-authored ~45 peer-reviewed papers; and he is also a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award. He has been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) since 2003, and is an elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIBME).
Presentation Title: Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Cancer Molecular Profiling, Detection, and Treatment
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| Invited Speakers |
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Cameron Alexander is an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Leadership Fellow 2009-2014 and Professor of Polymer Therapeutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, UK. where he also is Head of the Division of Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering. Professor Alexander received degrees (BSc and PhD) in Chemistry from the University of Durham, UK and carried out post-doctoral research at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and has published more than 120 refereed articles. Research in his group centres on the synthesis of responsive/‘smart’ materials for biomedical applications. Recent papers have focused on cell signal recognition, diagnostics and cell targeting, drug and gene delivery, and polymer-biopolymer conjugates. Professor Alexander is the Director of the £2.5 million EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Targeted Therapeutics and Formulation Sciences, a partnership between the University of Nottingham, University College London and seven leading pharmaceutical companies. He also is Principal Investigator for the UK component of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate (NanoFar) in Nanomedicine.
Presentation Title: Polymer Therapeutics and Cells – Signals, Pathways and Responses |
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Dr Cyrille Boyer received his PhD in polymer chemistry in 2006 from the University of Montpellier II (Ecole National Supèrieure de Chimie de Montpellier) under the supervision of Prof JJ Robin & Prof B Boutevin. His PhD was in collaboration with Solvay-Solexis and devoted to the synthesis of new graft copolymers using grafting “to”. In 2006, he undertook a position with Dupont Performance and Elastomers (Willmington, United States), dealing with the synthesis of original fluorinated elastomers using controlled radical polymerization (eg iodine transfer polymerization). In November 2006, he moved to the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), University of New South Wales, as a senior research fellow under the supervision of Prof T P Davis. In 2009, he received an Australian Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the ARC. Since 2010, he has been appointed as a Lecturer in School of Chemical Engineering (UNSW). In 2011 Dr Boyer was appointed a Project Leader in UNSWs Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, in this role he is developing new therapeutic nanoparticles for neuroblastoma cancer, liver fibrosis and prostate cancer. In 2012 he was promoted to senior lecturer at the School of Chemical Engineering and he received an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. His research interests cover the preparation of well-defined polymers, protein-polymer conjugates and hybrid organic-inorganic nanoparticles using controlled radical polymerization. He has co-authored over 95 reviewed research articles and has filed three international patents and a commercial product. Dr Boyer has received a number of awards including in 2012 the Scopius Young Research of the Year Award (Engineering and Technology) for his work in polymer science; and an American Chemical Society award for best poster. |
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Dr Lesley Chow is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof Molly Stevens in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. She received her BS in 2004 in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, USA and her PhD in 2009 in the same field from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA. She conducted her doctoral work under the supervision of Prof Samuel Stupp in the area of self-assembling peptide systems for regenerative medicine applications. She is part of a multidisciplinary research team within the Medical Engineering Solutions in Osteoarthritis Centre for Excellence, one of four Centres of Excellence in the UK. Her current research involves the design and synthesis of novel peptide-polymer conjugates that can be used for functionalizing fiber scaffolds and hydrogels for osteoarthritis treatment and cartilage treatment. She is particularly interested in the interactions between peptides and glycosaminoglycans and developing hierarchically organized scaffolds that mimic the spatial distribution of components found in biological tissues.
Presentation Title: Peptide-polymer conjugates for dynamic biomimetic scaffolds
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Professor Allan Coombes obtained his PhD in Polymer Physics from Bristol University. Post-doctoral research followed in bioengineering at University College London, bone substitution at the University of Texas in San Antonio, nano- and microparticle drug carriers and vaccine formulation at the School of Pharmacy, Nottingham University. Academic appointments are listed as: Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at Aston University, Birmingham, UK, Senior lecturer in Pharmaceutics at Sydney University, Professor in Pharmaceutics at Kingston University London’s new School of Pharmacy and Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy, the University of Queensland. He recently joined the International Medical University (IMU) in Kuala Lumpur. Allan has published extensively in the fields of biomaterials and drug delivery. He focuses on the formulation and physico- chemical characterisation of advanced drug delivery systems with a current emphasis on targeted drug delivery to the colon and controlled release of small molecule and macromolecular bioactives from polymer matrix-type devices.
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Professor Matt Cooper completed his PhD in Australia in 1995 and then spent 13 years in the UK, first at the University of Cambridge, then 9 years in start-ups and biotechnology companies. This involved innovation, fund raising, intellectual property generation, licensing, product development and commercialisation. He returned to Australia in 2009 as a NHMRC Australia Fellow, at The Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland. He has consulted with Private Equity Investment, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Diagnostics companies, was Managing Director of Cambridge Medical Innovations (part of Alere Inc.) and CSO of Akubio. He is an inventor and driver of a several antibiotic drug discovery programs with lead compounds pre-clinical. He was the first to establish the mode of action of next generation glycopeptide antibiotics and elucidate how they kill resistant bacteria by localising in membranes. This observation led to renewed and inspired drug discovery efforts and assisted in the design and development of novel, membrane-targeting antibiotics. Prof. Cooper has publications in Nature, Nature Drug Discovery, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, 19 patents, two books, and has launched nine product families.
Presentation Title: Diagnosing and treating infectious diseases: why we need new drugs for superbugs
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Professor Mike Cortie is the Director of the Institute for Nanoscale Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Born and educated in South Africa. He has a BSc(Eng) degree in Physical Metallurgy, a Masters degree earned from research on the corrosion of zirconium and a PhD degree, which was focused on metal fatigue and awarded in 1987. After a stint at South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation and at Pylon Engineering, a gear-cutting works, Mike joined Mintek, a minerals and metals research organisation. Mike headed the Physical Metallurgy Division of Mintek between 1997 and 2002. The Division consults widely to South African and international industry and now generates the major portion of its funds from foreign contract research. He relocated to Australia and joined UTS in July 2002. Mike's current research interest is nanotechnology, and in particular the applications of precious metals in nanotechnology. Previous research activities included research on ferritic and nickel-substituted stainless steels, on intermetallic compounds with the C1 (CF12) and B2/L21 crystal structures, on X-ray diffraction and crystallographic texture of bcc and fcc alloys, on cellular automata and the simulation of metal solidification, cracking and solid state transformations, on explosive interactions between molten metal and water, on displacive transformations in Pt-containing alloys and compounds, on the phase relationships in the Al-Au-Cu ternary system, and on the crystal structures of the martensite phase formed by displacive phase transformation in the b Au-Al-Cu shape memory alloy. He has also been active outside of the materials arena, and has made contributions to the mathematical modelling and graphics rendering of mollusc shells, and the science education of children.
Presentation Title: Macrophage Targeting and Control Using Gold Nanoparticles
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Professor David Haddleton has been working in the area of controlled polymer synthesis for over 20 years since being employed at ICI. Haddleton has published over 250 papers and is currently Editor in Chief of the RSC journal "Polymer Chemistry". Work in the group is in different aspects of developing polymerisation methodology, polymers for industrial applications (novel dispersants, compatibilsers, coatings), polymers for personal care applications (polymers for use in hair and skin care) and polymers for biomedical and nano medicinal applications (new and targeted peptied and protein conjugation). Recent work includes new conjugation strategies (disulphide, tyrosine, etc), glycopolymers, sequence control of synthetic polymer structure and polymerisation in biological media.
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Professor Tom Davis is a Director of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (ACN) as well as Director of the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) at The University of New South Wales. He is a former ARC Federation Fellow and has published more than 360 refereed papers, eleven book chapters and one co-edited book; Handbook of Radical Polymerization. His work has received high levels of interest and influence as measured by citations with a personal ‘h-index’ of 68, a current career citation count of 15000+ and 32 papers cited 100+ times. He has published more than 90 papers in the Journal Macromolecules (designated A* in the recent ERA rankings); this is the highest contribution made to Macromolecules by any Australian researcher. He has made significant contributions to a number of fields including hydrogels and soft contact lenses, pulsed laser polymerisation (determination of rate constants), copolymerisation mechanism, ring-opening polymerisation, catalytic chain transfer, mass spectrometry of polymers, living radical polymerisation, architecture control, glycopolymers, micro-patterned ?surfaces, nanoparticles, photochromism and most recently bio-hybrid nanostructures. He has trained more than 40 PhD students many of whom are now in senior positions in industry and academia. |
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Dr Annette Dexter completed undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Queensland. She earned her MS and PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was awarded a University of Illinois Fellowship and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship. She carried out postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and returned to the University of Queenslandin 2004. She is currently an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Group Leader in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
Presentation Title: Designer hydrogels for biomedical applications
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A/Prof John Forsythe is a researcher in the Department of Materials Engineering at Monash University and has a major interest in neural tissue engineering. His research has focused on new methods to rewire the damaged brain and has projects explore the use of biomaterials to assist in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and brain trauma. His research expertise is the development of new nano-biomaterials for brain repair which include electrically conducting nanofibres, light responsive hydrogels, self assembling peptides and injectable scaffolds. A/Prof has published over 80 journal papers.
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Dr Peter French is the Chief Executive Officer of genetic therapy company Benitec Biopharma Ltd. Benitec’s current projects are directed to using gene silencing-based therapies for hepatitis C, drug resistant lung cancer, intractable cancer-associated pain, chronic hepatitis B infection, acute macular degeneration and for an orphan genetic muscular dystrophy disease. Peter has an MBA in Technology Management and a PhD in cell and molecular biology, and extensive experience in medical research and biotechnology spanning 33 years. He was Principal Scientist at St Vincent’s Hospital’s Centre for Immunology for 15 years, and founded publicly listed Cryosite Ltd in 1999. Between 2002 and 2009 he held senior executive positions in Probiomics Ltd and Fermiscan Ltd. Peter is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Honorary Fellow at Macquarie University. He is a Past President of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology, and is a current member of the Board of the International Society for Differentiation.
Presentation Title: Delivery of ddRNAi constructs – will nanoparticles replace viral delivery?
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Simon Harrisson received his PhD in 2002 at the University of New South Wales (Australia) on the kinetics of free radical ring-opening polymerization. After post-doctorates in the groups of Professor David Haddleton (University of Warwick, UK) and Professor Karen Wooley (Washington University in St Louis, USA), he moved to Ezio Rizzardo's group at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia. In 2010, Simon moved to Paris to join Patrick Couvreur's group at the Universite de Paris-Sud, where he worked on the development of drug-loaded nanoparticles based on polyisoprene. He is currently employed by Solvay at the Centre de Recherche et de Technologie Aubervilliers. His research interests include the synthesis of gradient copolymers through living radical polymerization and the self-assembly of amphiphilic copolymers.
Presentation Title: Nanoparticles with In Vivo Anticancer Activity from Well-Defined Polymer Prodrug Amphiphiles
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Eva Harth was born in Cologne, Germany and studied chemistry at the University of Bonn and the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She obtained her PhD in 1998 for work in the area of fullerene adducts and polymers from the MPI for Polymer Research in Mainz. A postdoctoral fellowship with CPIMA (NSF-Centre for Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies) brought her to the IBM Almaden Research Centre, California USA, focusing on the development of new living free polymerization techniques and approaches to nanoscopic materials. In 2001, she joined XenoPort, Inc. as a Staff Scientist investigating enabling technologies for increased bioavailability of macromolecular therapeutics. She started at Vanderbilt University as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry in 2004 with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt Medical School and was promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry in 2011 and Associate Professor of Pharmacology in 2012. In 2007, she was awarded with the NSF CAREER Award for young faculty and her research advances delivery technologies across challenging biological barriers and towards highly vascular tumors. |
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Professor Jagat Kanwar is the Head of Nanomedicine-Laboratory of Immunology and Molecular Biomedical Research (LIMBR). Dr. He has an international reputation and expertise in investigating fundamental and applied molecular signalling aspects of pathogenesis of cancer, chronic inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases, thereby, leading to the development of treatment strategies from bench to bedside. He has more than 100 publications in high impact factor and peer reviewed international journals, 17 book chapters and 2 edited books. Assoc Prof Kanwar’s research has generated several patents/PCTs with more than five licensed patents for commercialization to BioPharma industry. His group is currently working on drug discovery and nanomedicine for oral and systemic drug delivery of a range of biomacromolecules (proteins/peptides, siRNAs and aptamers) for targeting survivin, HIF-1? and other apoptotic and inflammatory cell signalling molecules in cancer, chronic inflammation and neurodegenerative disorders. For commercially funded grants, his laboratory conducts research in the areas of dairy/plant immunomodulatory bioactives, elderly gut supplements, their role in bone /muscle development and osteoarthritis. He serves as an Editor, Reviewer and Editorial Advisory Board Member of more than 18 international journals and was invited as a speaker in more than 40 conferences and chaired sessions in conferences and scientific meetings on Cancer, Immunology, Vaccines, Microbial infections, Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Biotechnology. He has been an active member and delegate in various professional bodies including American Society of Nanomedicine, Australian Nanotechnology network, and a regular grant reviewer for national, international and corporate funding agencies.
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Professor Levon Khachigian, a molecular and cellular biologist, has increased our understanding of transcriptional control in vascular dysfunction. He has established roles for the immediate-early gene products c-Jun and Egr-1 as “master regulators” and as drug targets in a wide range of vascular diseases. He has also pioneered the area of DNAzymes as an emerging new class of anti-gene therapeutic agents having been the first to successfully use these in an animal model and in a myriad of models since. Professor Khachigian, an NHMRC Australia Fellow, is Director of the Centre for Vascular Research at UNSW.
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Dr Subramanian Krishnakumar MBBS, received an MD Pathology from Madras University. He undertook three research fellowships in the US: Ophthalmic Pathology at Doheny Eye Institute, University of Southern California in 2000; DBT fellowship in Cancer Nanotechnology at Missouri Columbia in 2007; and ICMR young Scientist Award in Ocular drug delivery at Durham’s Research Center, Nebraska. He is currently HOD of L&T Ophthalmic pathology laboratory and in charge of the Nanobiotechnology laboratory and Radheshyam Stem Cell laboratory and also the Deputy Director-Research, Vision Research Foundatio in India. His areas of interest include diagnostic ophthalmic pathology and in research: tumor biology, miRNA, stem cells, aptamers and micro fluidics. He has 110 peer reviewed publications and recently was the recipient of a $700,000 grant for research in Retinoblastoma Government of India. He has received two Indo Australian Research grants for: Fabrication of EpCAM Aptamer and identifying cancer stem cells in Retinoblastoma; and LNA modification of the Aptamer and constructing chimeras for targeting cancer stem cells with researchers from Deakin University. Landmark work has been in identifying blood based markers (microRNas) for retinoblastoma, a childhood eye cancer.
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Twan Lammers studied Pharmacy at the University of Utrecht. He obtained a DSc degree in Radiation Oncology from Heidelberg University in 2008, and a PhD degree in Pharmaceutics from Utrecht University in 2009. From 2007 until 2010, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Pharmaceutics at Utrecht University. Since 2009, he has been appointed as a Group Leader at the Department of Experimental Molecular Imaging and at the Helmholtz Center for Biomedical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. Since 2012, he has also been appointed as a Part-time Assistant Professor at the Department of Targeted Therapeutics at the University of Twente. He is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Controlled Release, Theranostics and The American Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. His primary research interests include drug targeting to tumors, image-guided drug delivery and tumor-targeted combination therapies.
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Dmitri Lapotko is Faculty Fellow in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Director of the Joint American-Belarussian Laboratory for Fundamental and Biomedical Nanophotonics at Rice University (USA). His research interests include photothermal interactions at micro- and nanoscale, imaging and microscopy, heat- and mass-transfer at nanoscale, nanomedicine, theranostics, biomedical nanomaterials, plasmon resonance, nanophotonics, gene theraphy, microsurgery and early diagnostics. Having published over 110 publications, a book chapter and seven patents, Professor Lapotko is on the editorial board of Theranostics.
Presentation Title: Non-stationary nanoevents instead of stationary nanoparticles for better nanomedicine
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Dr Jingquan Liu received his PhD from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2004 with a project on the fabrication of enzyme electrodes under the supervision of Prof. Justin Gooding and Prof. Michael Paddon-Row. After graduation he took up a postdoctoral position on nanofabrication of nanocaps with UTS and CSIRO under the supervision of Prof. Michael Cortie. After a short visiting postdoctoral fellow under the guidance of Prof. Heather Maynard at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he was appointed as a UNSW Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in 2007. After three years’ academic training under the supervision of Prof. Tom Davis, he obtained a professorship at Qingdao University, China. In the same year he was awarded “Taishan Scholar”, a title for prestigious academic researcher in Shandong Province. He has co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed papers and one book chapter. Jingquan’s broad interest covers RAFT polymerization, bioconjugates, nanocomposites, graphene and biosensing etc. Dr Liu is also undertaking two commerical projects on graphene large-scale production and waste acrylic acid recorery.
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Dr Megan Lord is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering at The University of New South Wales. She received her PhD from The University of New South Wales in 2006 in the area of protein and cellular interactions with biomaterials. In 2010, she received an Australian Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the ARC. Her research interests lie at the interface between biology and engineering focusing on biophysical interactions betrween proteins, cells and materials which are relevant to areas of biomaterials, tissue repair, regeneration, drug delivery and biochemistry. Her current research includes studying biomimetic materials for targeted growth factor delivery systems for bone/cartilage regernation, nanoparticle drug delivery systems to treat cancer and inflammation and the role of surface nano-topography on implant integration.
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Dr Joe Maeji has more than 20 years of experience in managing successful R&D projects in the biotechnology and life science industries. His focus has been on the commercialisation of products and technologies at the interface of chemistry and biology. He has significant experience in successfully securing funding for the development of new technologies, as well as in creating and securing extensive IP portfolios. Joe was a co-founder of the company that became Anteo Diagnostics as well as its founding CEO. Previously, he held senior management positions at Mimotopes Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia and at Chiron Corporation, San Francisco, USA. Joe has published more than 80 publications on topics ranging from surface chemistry to drug discovery. He holds a BSc in chemistry from University of Queensland, a, MPhil in enzymology from Griffith University, and PhD in Polymer Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.
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Massimo Masserini is full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical School, University of Milano-Bicocca , Italy, where he is Head of the Nanomedicine Center, an interdepartmental Consortium devoted to the bio-medical applications of nanotechnology . His research has always been focused on neurochemistry and molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, biochemistry of cell membranes and on physicochemical studies on membrane models, in particular liposomes. He has authored or co-authored over 120 papers in national and international journals. Currently, he is Coordinator of “Nanoparticles for therapy and diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease (NAD)”, a large FP7 Project involving 18 Partners of 13 European Countries, which aims to take advantage of nanotechnologies to produce multifunctional particles envisioned for the treatment of this disease. Until now, the activities of the Project led to file 4 patents and to the publication of 40 papers on the top journals of nanomedicine.
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Professor Paul Millner. After a BSc in Biochemistry, PhD in Plant Science at the University of Leeds, then Postdoctoral Fellowships at Purdue University (In, USA) and Imperial College, Paul returned to Leeds in 1986 as a Lecturer. After 15 years as a plant biotechnologist/protein chemist Paul moved into the area of nano- and bionanotechnology, with particular interests in the applications of nanoparticles and development of biosensors for applications as diverse as medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and detection of biological and chemical toxins. Current programmes include: electrochemical biosensors for diagnosis of STIs and MRSA, and biosensors for detecting bowel leakage after colorectal cancer resesection; targeted and fluorescent nanoparticles for colorectal cancer; photosensitizer loaded nanofibres for the solar sanitation of polluted water. Diverse as these interests might seem, all of his work is united by a deep interest in bioengineering on the nanoscale by interfacing biological reagents with surfaces to result in electrical communication or enhanced activity.
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Professor Rodney Minchin received his PhD from the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Western Australia before undertaking post-doctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute in Washington DC. His major work was on pulmonary toxicology of anti-cancer drugs and chemical carcinogenesis. He returned as a QEII Fellow to the University of New South Wales to investigate polyamine transport in the lung. Eventually, he returned to the University of Western Australia as a teaching and research academic where his interest in arylamine N-acetyltransferases and gene therapy developed. Currently Professor Minchin is the Chair of Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Queensland. His current research in nanotechnology focuses on the role of surface proteins in the disposition and adverse reaction to nanoparticles.
Presentation Title: The Role of the Macromolecular Corona in the Biological Response to Nanoparticles in Humans.
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Dr Ravin Narain is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering and an Associate Investigator of the Alberta Glycomics Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Dr Narain has published over 75 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has recently edited a book entitled “Engineered Carbohydrate-based Materials for Biomedical Applications.” Dr Narain conducted postdoctoral research fellowships with Prof Steven P. Armes at the University of Sussex (currently at University of Sheffield) and Prof Allan S Hoffman and Prof Patrick Stayton at the University of Washington. He held an academic appointment at Laurentian University for the period of 2004-2009. His primary research focuses on the Polymer Chemistry, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine.
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Dr David Owen is Vice President Research for Starpharma Pty Ltd. Dr Owen has extensive experience in medicinal chemistry and biochemistry, and in managing teams focused on commercially directed drug discovery. He has held several positions in the biotech industry including Mimotopes, Cerylid and Glykoz and gathered extensive international experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical research and development. Since joining Starpharma David has driven the drug delivery programs by developing and executing a number of successful proof-of-concept studies. The results from these studies have led to a number of commercial partnerships such as Stiefel a GSK company, Lilly and AZ, as well as driving Starpharma’ s own internal drug delivery program focused on an improved dendrimer-docetaxel formulation.
Presentation Title: Dendrimers: New Opportunities to Treat and Prevent Human Disease
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Dr Phoebe Phillips is an NHMRC CDF fellow and leader of the Pancreatic Cancer Translational Research Group, University of NSW (UNSW), Australia (funded by NHMRC, Cancer Institute NSW, Cancer Council, Cure Cancer Australia). She has been the Honorary Secretary for the Australasian Pancreatic Club for almost 5 years. Her training into pancreatic diseases began in 1999, with completion of her PhD in 2005 (UNSW). Her PhD significantly contributed to the mechanism of pancreatic injury and fibrogenesis, specifically the role of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs, key effector cells in pancreatic fibrosis). In 2005, she commenced a fellowship at the University of Massachusetts (USA). She identified an inhibitor for heat shock protein-70 (confers resistance to apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells) called triptolide, currently in a phase-1 clinical trial in pancreatic cancer. In 2007, she returned to Australia and provided evidence that PSCs produce acetylcholine which may play a role in normal physiology and in disease pathogenesis. Her current research program is designed to acquire novel insights into tumour-stromal interactions in pancreatic cancer, with a goal of developing therapeutic strategies to target two major cell types that contribute to chemoresistance in pancreatic cancer i.e. cancer cells and stromal PSCs. |
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Chris Porter is Professor of Pharmaceutics at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University, Melbourne. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Nottingham before moving to Australia and Monash in 1992. Subsequently, Chris’ research program has focused on understanding and quantifying drug absorption, distribution and elimination profiles and on developing the models and techniques to probe these interactions. A major interest has been the use of lipid based nanoemulsions to enhance oral bioavailability and to stimulate lymphatic transport. More recently, his interests have expanded into mechanisms of intracellular drug transport and the potential utility of dendrimers as drug delivery systems. Chris has published more than 130 peer reviewed papers in these areas (>4200 cites) and his programs have attracted ~$10m in funding from both government and commercial organisations. |
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Dr Sharon Sagnella is a project leader with the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (UNSW) |
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Professor Brent Sumerlin graduated from North Carolina State University in 1998 and received his Ph.D. in 2003 at the University of Southern Mississippi under the direction of Dr. Charles McCormick. He continued his work as a Visiting Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Research Associate in the group of Krzysztof Matyjaszewski at Carnegie Mellon University from 2003–2005. In 2005 he joined the Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University as an Assistant Professor. In 2009 he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. In the fall of 2012, Prof. Sumerlin joined the George & Josephine Butler Polymer Research Laboratory and the Center for Macromolecular Science & Engineering within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. His work has been well recognized in the scientific community. In 2011 he was named a Kavli Fellow (Frontiers of Science, National Academies of Sciences). In 2010 he was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and a Gerald J. Ford Research Fellow. In 2008 he received an NSF CAREER Award, and he also received the ACS Leadership Development Award. Dr. Sumerlin’s research has been published in more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, he has edited three books. He serves on the editorial boards for 13 journals and is Associate Editor of the RSC journal Polymer Chemistry.
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Dr Lei Tao, graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China receiving his Bachelar and Master degrees in 1999 and 2002 respectively. After completing his PhD at Warwick University (2003-2006), he moved to the University of California, Los Angels (UCLA, USA) in 2006, and then The University of New South Wales (UNSW, Australia) in 2008 as a postdoctral research assistant. In 2010, Dr Tao joined the Department of Chemistry at the Tsinghua University. His research interests are focused on the synthesis of well-defined polymers and applications of those polymers in biological areas. He hase published more than 50 SCI papers, and the H-index is 23.
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Dr Pall Thordarson (Palli) undertook his BSc (Chemistry) at the University of Iceland before heading to Australia in 1997 to do a PhD in the group of Prof Maxwell Crossley at the University of Sydney. After completing his thesis in 2001 he obtained a Marie Curie Fellowship to work with Prof Roeland Nolte and Prof Alan Rowan at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Thordarson returned to Australia in 2003 to take up an independent position as a Sesqui Research Fellow with a joint position at the Electron Microscope Unit and the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney. He held an Australian Research Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC) from 2006-2010. Thordarson moved to the School of Chemistry at UNSW to take up a position as a Senior Lecturer in November 2007. In 2012 he was awarded a Future Fellowship from the ARC and later that year he was promoted to the position of Associate Professor. Thordarson was awarded the New South Wales Young Tall Poppy Science Award in 2008 and The International Society of Porphyrins and Phthalocaynines (SPP) / Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines (JPP): SPP/JPP Young Investigator Award for 2010 and the Le Fèvre Memorial Prize from the Australian Academy of Science for 2012. The Thordarson group looks to Nature for inspiration when it comes to solving the problems we are currently dealing with in nanotechnology. This is the philosophy of bio-mimetic chemistry, which underpins most of the work in this group. Main research interest are in the broader areas of Nanobiotechnology and Bio-organic chemistry. The three key current areas of focus in his group are: i) Supramolecular chemistry, including on biomolecules. ii) Light-activation of proteins and solar energy capture and iii) self-assembled gels and other advanced materials for drug delivery and tissue engineering.
Presentation Title: Self-assembled Gels: From Understanding their Formation to Applications in Drug Delivery
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Professor Nicolay (Nick) Tsarevsky obtained his M.S. in theoretical chemistry and chemical physics in 1999 from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. He joined Professor Kris Matyjaszewski’s research group at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, in 2000, and obtained his Ph.D. in 2005. He received several awards for his research, including the 2003 Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Award in Green Chemistry and the 2008 National Starch and Chemical Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Chemistry (both from the ACS), and several others. He was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (2005-6), and a member of the founding team of ATRP Solutions, Inc., of which he served as Chief Science Officer. He was secretary (2005) and chair (2006) of the Polymer Group of the Pittsburgh Section of ACS, as well as chair of the Section (2009). He has authored and coauthored 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, 1 textbook, and has served as the co-editor of 3 books. He joined the Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University in the summer of 2010. Current group consists of 5 graduate and 5 undergraduate students and 1 postdoctoral fellow. Research interests include polymerization techniques, functional materials, particularly ones with biomedical applications, coordination chemistry and catalysis, and the chemistry hypervalent compounds.
Presentation Title: Synthesis of Multifunctional (Hyper)Branched Polymers for Delivery and Imaging Applications
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Dr Anita Kamra Kerma, Associate Professor, at K.M.College, University of Delhi, has over 22 years of teaching experience and has worked at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. She graduated in 1982 from University of Delhi, and was awarded her PhD in 1988. She was a Senior Scientist at the School of Pharmacy, University of Manchester for two years. She has two patents on anti-cancer and over 35 publications to her credit. She has been awarded the Charles Darwin Gold medal in 2009. Her research interests include Developing Novel Polymer Therapeutics for Nanomedicine, making in vivo models for quantifying nanoparticulate drug delivery for cancer and diabetes, developing rationale designs, based on whole body and cellular pharmacokinetics-pharmaco-dynamic profile of drugs.
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Professor Nicolas (Nico) Voelcker completed his BSc at the University of Saarland (1993) and his MSc at the RWTH Aachen (1995) in Germany, Nico did his PhD thesis (1999) in polymer surface chemistry at the German Wool Research Institute (RWTH Aachen) under Professor Hartwig Hocker. He received postdoctoral fellowships to work in the area of bioorganic chemistry under Professor Reza Ghadiri at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. In 2001, he became a Lecturer at Flinders Unaiversity, an Associate Professor in 2006 and a full Professor in 2008. From 2008-2011, he was the Associate Head of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Flinders University. Since 2012, he is a Professor in Chemistry and Materials Science at the Mawson Institute of the University of South Australia. His key research interest lies in the development of nanostructured materials for applications in biosensors, biochips, biomaterials and drug deliversy. He is also developing tools for high-throughput screening of cell-material interactions, including in the area of nanotoxicity. He has aurthored over 185 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has received fellowships from the German Research Foundation, CSIRO, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is a recipient of the Tall Poppy Science Award.
Presentation Title: Designing Biointerfaces with Nano-Silicon
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Volkmar Weissig, Sc.D., Ph.D. is a Tenured Full Professor of Pharmacology and the Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy Glendale in Arizona, USA. Dr. Weissig received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry and his postdoctoral Sc.D. degree (habilitation) in Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from the Martin-Luther University in Halle (Germany). Combined he completed several years of postdoctoral fellowships at the Cardiology Research Center in Moscow (Russia), at the Academic Department of Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London (UK), at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Science in Prague (CSFR), at the College of Pharmacy and the College of Medicine at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL and at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. Before joining the faculty at Midwestern University, he was an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Dr. Weissig holds 16 patents and he has published over 80 research papers, review articles and book chapters, mostly in the area of nano drug delivery systems. He also edited four books. More recently he has turned his scientific focus on Mitochondrial Nano Pharmaceutics, an area he actively has been pioneering for the last 10 years. He serves as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Liposome Research and he is member of several other Editorial Boards. In July 2009 he was inducted into the World Technology Network as a Fellow.'
Presentation Title: Mitochondria-Targeted Pharmaceutical Nanocarriers
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Dr Renee Whan is the head of the Biomedical Imaging Faculty in the UNSWs Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre.
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| Macromolecular Design |
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| Medical Imaging |
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| Smart Surfaces in Regenerative Medicine |
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| Delivery |
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| IP Forum |
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Prof Tom Davis
