Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology AIBN’s Post

The best place to kickstart your career in personalised medicine, advanced biomanufacturing, and nano-engineered materials is here at the AIBN. Last year at AIBN: 🧬 11 PhDs became a first author 🧪 39 published papers, with 12 ending up in the prestigious Nature range 🥼 15 projects were created solely because of their vision 👩🔬 1 climbed the ranks to become a group leader themselves Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting some of the amazing PhD opportunities available with our researchers. Do the PhD you deserve. Apply today. https://buff.ly/3y51jYG #HDR #PhD #Degree #IndustryTraining

Batteries that are cheaper, more powerful, and get our electric vehicles even further down the road?  Dr xia huang is on the case, and she’s just won a DECRA grant to kick things up a gear.  Fantastic to see Dr Huang among the 16 The University of Queensland researchers named in the latest Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) round, announced by the Australian Research Council (ARC).  Dr Huang was most recently part of the research group headed by ARC Laureate and clean energy expert Professor Lianzhou Wang, which straddles the AIBN and School of Chemical Engineering UQ.  She has just been appointed the senior scientist at industry partner VSPC Ltd – Lithium Australia’s nanotechnology cathode division - and will remain a presence at the AIBN as she continues the research component of her work.   Her $427,019 DECRA grant will allow her to pioneer cutting-edge cobalt-free cathode materials for high-energy-density and cost-competitive lithium-ion batteries. “Leveraging its abundant natural resources and advanced mining industry, Australia stands at a strategic vantage point in the lithium-ion battery supply chain,” Dr Huang says. “Despite this, there lacks value-added battery grade material producers in this country.  “This DECRA project seeks to bridge this gap by developing innovative and robust cathode materials for next-generation LIBs with high energy density and cost-effectiveness.”  Congratulations Dr Huang!  

You might be wondering what a Davidson Plum is doing inside our MRI machine. Someone who can tell you is Hervey Bay’s Ebony Esparon-Binjuda, one of the inquisitive cohort of InsipreU visitors in our labs this week. The AIBN was again delighted to take part in the annual InspireU Program, which brings Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school students from across the state to The University of Queensland's St Lucia campus for a week-long camp. 🔬InspireU gives these students a chance to see the labs where some of the groundbreaking research done at UQ happens. Visitors to the AIBN got a look at the incredible machines we use at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, and a first-hand lesson from our researchers on the real world impacts of their work. This involved performing imaging scans on a range of native Australian fruits – including the North Queensland Lily Pilli, Bush Apple, Burdekin Plum, and Boonjie Tamarind - to highlight the different capabilities of our imaging gear. Ebony is originally from Thursday Island and has her mind set on becoming a scientist. She is already studying the ‘big three’ of chemistry, physics, and biology. “I just really like looking at how the world works”. 🥼A big thank you to AIBN researchers Merja Joensuu (PhD), Nicholas Fletcher, Saber Abd Elkader, Irma Vermeijlen, Nyakuoy Yak, Gregory Pierens, Nicole Atcheson, Chrystal Douflias, and Sarah Daniel for showing these future scientists the ropes.

🥕 🌿 From carrots to orange peels, you’ll find cellulose in pretty much anything.  It’s the most abundant organic compound on earth and - if processed correctly – gives researchers like Dr Nasim Amiralian a material that could reshape manufacturing as we know it.  We’re talking nanocellulose: thin strands of plant matter that possess incredible mechanical strength, elasticity, biocompatibility, and thermal stability. Here’s your chance to help Dr Amiralian unlock the full potential of this revolutionary material. ⚗️ Dr Amiralian has a number of exciting PhD projects available in her lab at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) for rising domestic researchers with an interest in sustainability and new materials.    Successful applicants would be joining a research group dedicated to tackling some of the world’s most pressing environmental and manufacturing issues.  A recent finalist in both the Australian Institute of Policy and Science QLD Young Tall Poppy Awards and AgriFutures growAG Catalyst program, Dr Amiralian’s uses nanocellulose platform technology to develop innovative materials for diverse applications, including biodegradable packaging materials, medical textiles, and bioelectronics.  “Reducing plastic pollution and food waste are two of the key motivators behind my research,” Dr Amiralian says.  “We are re-engineering agricultural waste, extracting the valuable nanomaterials - all of them which are sustainable, biologically degradable and abundant – and we are making new materials for the health of the environment and benefit of industry.”  Current research opportunities in her lab include:  - Development of sustainable coating to improve the shelf life of perishable fruits  - Advancing biodegradable packaging materials with a specific focus on food packaging  - Development of sustainable and antibiotic free antimicrobial additives for animal feed  - Development of catalysts for recycling plastic waste into value added chemicals and polymers  - Exploring intelligent textiles that contain bioactive nanofiber and stimuli-responsive nanomaterials to detect the virus and bacteria and disinfect them 🔬If you are looking to boost your research career, to make new discoveries using cutting-edge equipment, build valuable industry links and develop translational skills – these opportunities are for you.  Read on to find out how you can join Dr Nasim Amiralian’s lab: https://lnkd.in/ghTnrEBR  

AIBN researchers are teaming up with Queensland businesses to deliver a range of new technology solutions, from next-gen lithium-ion batteries to indoor solar panels, and nanotech-assisted bioinks for drug screening. Three AIBN-affiliated researchers won funding under the state government’s latest Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship round, a program that recognises the benefit of linking strategic research projects with the growth of the Queensland economy ⚗️ Dr Liwen Zhang will use his $160,000 early career fellowship over the next two years in partnership with 3D tissue culture firm Gelomics to develop nanotechnology and AI-assisted kits for drug screening 🔋 Dr Tong’en Lin - a joint appointment between the AIBN and School of Chemical Engineering UQ - will use his $240,000 prize to develop graphite materials for fast-chargeable and long-endurance lithium-ion batteries with Graphinex. 💡 Dr Miaoqiang Lyu is another joint AIBN appointment whose $240,000 mid-career fellowship was awarded through his affiliation with the School of Chemical Engineering. This project will involve working with Reid Print Technologies to develop a new indoor power supply that harvests artificial light. Read more about the work of these researchers here: https://lnkd.in/gtwPMS4z

"The Energy transition is not a nice to have, it's a must have" Watch LanzaTech co-founder Dr Sean Simpson talk about the need for large scale energy transition. Dr Simpson, who served as LanzaTech chief scientific officer for many years and these days continues as a strategic advisor, says there is still much to learn about the use of carbon feedstocks in gas fermentation, but he is confident the company is on the right track. He says leaning on the expertise of researchers at UQ’s BioHub will help LanzaTech embed gas fermentation as a standard practice in the industrial landscape and create a true circular economy – as well as address the most pressing issue of our time. UQ Strategic Partnerships #ClimateChange #Biosustainability #Biomanufacturing #GasFermentation #Biohub

💻🥼Does working with large scale industry partners on the tools and processes to make the next generation of computer chips sound appealing to you? Are you interested in working in materials science or polymer chemistry on cutting edge technologies that could be adopted by global semiconductor for computer chip manufacture? Then look no further, because now is your chance to join a research team working at the forefront of microelectronics and polymer chemistry. Associate Professor Idriss Blakey, Dr Hui Peng and Professor Andrew Whittaker are renowned in the field of developing polymeric materials for nanofabrication and hoping to find candidates to apply to the current UQ PhD scholarship round for domestic students, who are creative, inquisitive and interested in work so detailed it is on the nanoscale. End goal: to further the world’s understanding of how the structure of materials relates to their properties and performance in nanofabrication processes. “What we are really looking into are the tools and the processes for making the next generation of computer chips and how we can increase their speed and efficiency,” Associate Professor Blakey says. “Broadly speaking the polymers can also be tailored for a range of applications and the processes used across the health or energy industries. If you are looking to boost your research career by learning from the best, to make new discoveries using cutting-edge equipment, build valuable industry links and develop translational skills – this opportunity is for you. Click through here to learn more about the PhD projects available with Associate Professor Blakey and Professor Whittaker, and how you can apply: https://lnkd.in/gK7FYNY6

🧫 🧬 The cells in our body talk via text, sending tiny messages to decide how key biological functions should proceed.   We call these messages extracellular vesicles – or EVs for short – and Dr Richard Lobb believes they can be harnessed to address serious disease.  Now he’s looking for a rising researcher to help design the technology that proves it. Dr Lobb has a position open in his lab for a PhD candidate to expand their knowledge of biomedical and clinical science, and work at the cutting edge of bioengineering and nanotechnology  An NHMRC Emerging Leader fellow, Dr Lobb leads the EV diagnostic and therapeutic research theme here at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology AIBN, where he focuses on developing innovative approaches to engineer therapeutic EVs and develop cutting-edge technologies to profile circulating EVs in the bloodstream.  🔬 Successful PhD candidates would be joining him for a project developing liquid biopsy tests to monitor primary brain cancers and metastatic brain lesion risks. “The outcome of patients with brain cancer is very poor, with limited options in determining if patients are responding to therapy.” Dr Lobb said. “There is a clinical need to identify patients at early-stage risk of cancer metastases or progression.  “From a simple blood test, this project will give us new eyes into what is happening in the brain by providing the earliest possible information on response to treatment.” Based at UQ’s St Lucia campus in Brisbane, the PhD project will be undertaken within the AIBN and its affiliated institutes and centres, specifically ANFF Queensland and the Centre for Microscopy, Microanalysis.  Successful applicants can expect to develop skills in device microfabrication, nanotechnology, exosomes, cell and protein engineering, and molecular biology - all of which the AIBN has state-of-the-art characterisation facilities to support.  🧪 This scholarship is funded by the Federal government to assist PhD students with their living costs and tuition fees.  If you’re a domestic scholar and interested in unlocking the transformative potential of nanotechnology, this project is for you. Candidates can apply now by clicking through here: https://lnkd.in/gZ987BkP