The ARC Training Centre for Cell and Tissue Engineering Technologies offers postgraduate scholarships and projects for PhD students to complete industry-led research and participate in a specially developed training program. The Centre will train a highly-skilled, entrepreneurial, industry-ready workforce that is poised to consolidate the growing industry base of the tissue engineering and regenerative medicine sector and translate innovative technologies into commercialisation.
Hiba completed her Master’s degree in laboratory medicine at RMIT, Melbourne, with a Bachelor degree in Biomedical science from UWIC, Cardiff. She has experience working as a clinical chemistry lecturer and as a laboratory scientist, and is currently completing her PhD with CTET, in conjunction with Gelomics, on understanding the role of Smad Anchor Receptor Activator (SARA) in liver disease.
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Noor is originally from Pakistan. She is a Master Graduate in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and has specialized in Anticancer Drug Design and Synthesis. Noor will be working at CTET with Industry Partner, Cartherics, under the direction of Prof. Laurence Meagher and Assoc. Prof. Tracy Heng, to synthesis notch signalling agonists in a scalable fashion.
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Graduating with a Bachelor of Biochemistry from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and a Master’s in biomedical technologies from Carlos III University (Spain), Lilibeth pursued diverse research experiences, including an Erasmus internship doing research in metabolic disease at Wroclaw University of Enviromental and Life Sciences (Poland) and as a trainee at Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CSIC, Spain) focusing on retinitis pigmentosa. She learnt techniques such as immunohistochemistry and microscopy which cultivated her desire to explore and exploit them further. Lilibeth is now a doctoral candidate at QUT exploring multiplexing staining technology in tumor biology, in collaboration with TissueGnostics.
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Anurag did his undergraduate degree in Biotechnology Engineering, and was drawn towards the Nanotech side of engineering due to its multidisciplinary approach in handling problems. While doing his Master in Materials Engineering at Uppsala Sweden, he found an interesting project here in Monash, so he decided to start to develop biosensors for cell quality control with a focus on temperature control, alongside the team at Bluechiip Ltd.
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Jordan Davern is currently completing his PhD focusing on high-throughput 3D bioprinting of the tumour microenvironment at QUT. Previously, Jordan worked as the Production Manager for Gelomics, a biotechnology start-up company focusing on 3D cell culture technologies. Jordan completed his Masters by research on bioengineered vascular network formation and Biomedical Science degree at QUT.
Mihiri’s interest in stem cell therapy stems from her previous studies where she completed a Bachelor in Biomedical Science (Honours) in 2016 and Masters in Clinical Embryology at Monash University in 2018. Within CTET, Mihiri will be working with A/Prof. Rebecca Lim on developing cell free therapies for liver disease and the prevention of liver cancer.
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Jovanna Nathalie Cervantes Guzmán is a CTET PhD Student at QUT. She has a Master’s degree in Marketing Management and a PhD in Management Sciences at the University of Guadalajara. She previously worked at the University of Guadalajara (CUCEA) and has training in the area of entrepreneurship by Boston University and Arizona State University. Her project is on female entrepreneurs in biotechnology.
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Shelby Holland graduated from Colgate University in NY, USA in 2018 with a Bachelor of Biochemistry and went on to complete a IRTA fellowship at the National Institutes of Health researching natural antibiotic producers. She then completed a Master of Biomedical Engineering with Business at the University of Melbourne in 2022. During her Master’s studies, she co-founded a medical technology company, Vause Medical, to develop a guidance system to improve lumbar punctures in paediatrics. Her company is currently part of the MedTech Actuator Accelerator 2022 cohort and has won multiple industry awards. Now, she is embarking on her PhD project to map and optimise the supply chain for cell therapies in Australia and abroad.
Xinyi (Mia) Hou graduated at UTS, Sydney in 2020 with a Bachelor of Forensic Science majoring chemistry, and graduated at Monash University in 2023 with a Master of Biomedical and Health Science. She is working on her PhD project with relevant industry partners to examine the scale and expansion of cell therapy manufacturing and other organizations, summarize the value proposition of companies in the cell therapy industry, developing and implementing new business models.
Sheng completed his Master’s degree in Biotechnology at Monash University in 2022. He is interested in epigenetics and cell reprogramming. His Master’s project focused on comparing different single genomic locus analysis approaches to characterise mammalian regulatory complexes. He is currently working on his PhD project with Dr. Bo Sun, Prof, Jose Polo, and Prof, John Bertram at BDI ADB and ARC CTET, reprograming of different cell types into podocytes.
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Norman Ilich graduated from QUT in 2019 with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) and worked as a pharmacist on the Sunshine Coast. As well as having a passion for providing patient care, he has always had an interest in pharmaceutical science and drug design. He is doing a PhD at QUT focusing on developing a biodegradable polymeric implant capable of delayed delivery of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone payload.
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Masoud graduated from Iran University of Science and Technology in 2016 with an M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. Nanotechnology and nanosciences have been Masoud’s areas of interest since he started his M.Sc. project. At the time he worked on the synthesis and characterization of different kinds of nanoparticles. Masoud has now joined Professor Nicolas Voelcker’s research team at Monash University, where he is working on a Ph.D. project that involves electrochemical sensing, microfabrication of electrodes, and microfluidic devices.
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Weronika graduated in 2022 with a Master’s degree in Pharmacology from the University of Manchester. She is interested in cancer immunotherapy and completed the Master’s project on “The effects of BRCA1 expression on cGAS-STING signalling and tumour immunogenicity in high-grade serous ovarian cancer”. She is currently working on her PhD project on enhancing CAR-T cell therapy of prostate cancer in collaboration with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
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Samali completed a bachelors special degree in Chemistry in 2015 and Master of Philosophy degree in Nano and advanced technologies in 2021. She is interested in nano engineering and her PhD project is focused on development of biosensors for cell quality control during storage and transport, with the industry partnership with Bluechiip Ltd. in Melbourne.
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Jeremy graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor’s Degree of Biomedical Science and an Honours Degree in Materials Engineering. During his Honours year, Jeremy worked together with Professor Neil Cameron and Dr Bradyn Parker on engineering polymeric materials for peripheral nerve regeneration. After completing his Honours, he worked with Neil on separate projects as a research assistant. He is currently completing his PhD candidature by continuing from his previous Honours year project with Prof. Cameron and CTET.
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Originally from Mexico, Javier is a biotechnology engineer with a Master’s degree in biotechnology, completed at Tecnologico de Monterrey. He has always been very interested in bioprocess engineering, chemical synthesis, and 3D printing, fields that were the core of his Master’s thesis. He has experience as a lecturer in subjects related to process engineering and smart materials and has collaborated on projects related to bioreactors, bioseparations, microfluidics, and bioprinting. Now, he is working on a PhD project, supervised by Professor Laurence Meagher, to create a biodegradable synthetic polymer-based bioink to develop functional 3D culture systems of human neuromuscular tissue, in conjunction with CTET Industry Partner Gelomics.
Maha received her Master’s in Molecular Medicine from the Amrita Center for Nanoscience and Molecular Medicine, India. As part of her Master’s thesis, she developed a multifunctional self-healing hydrogel for infectious wound healing using metal-ligand coordination interaction. She also worked on other projects such as developing chitosan-based antiseptic drug-incorporated bandages to prevent skin infections and a chitin-based injectable hydrogel for cranial bone regeneration using nano whitlockite/ nano bioglass and FGF-18. After her Master’s degree, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Amrita Center for Nanoscience and Molecular Medicine on “Indo-Korea (Seoul National University)” cooperative initiative to develop a bioceramic loaded hyaluronic acid-collagen cryogel for drug delivery at the site of bone regeneration in an avascular femoral head model.
Shabnam worked as a research assistant in Pediatric Urology and Regenerative Medicine Research Center in Children’s Medical Center in Tehran for 12 years. Her focus was on acellularization and recellularization of more than twenty tissues/organs and surgical techniques on laboratory animals, with more than 50 published articles. She is enthusiastic in stem cells and materials engineering for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. She is doing a PhD at ARMI in conjunction with ARC Centre, focusing on developing Novel Bioink Carrier Formulations for 3D Bioprinting of Skeletal Muscle.
The study of materials characterization has been Elham’s passion since 2013, when she started her Bachelor Degree in Materials Engineering at Isfahan University of Technology. Her research interests include Additive Manufacturing, Design and Topology Optimization in AM, Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering. Elham has now joined Distinguished Prof. Dietmar W. Hutmacher’s research team at QUT, where she is working on a PhD project that involves design, additive manufacturing, and characterization of bone and breast tissue.
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Michael graduated from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria, in 2018 with a B. Tech (Honours) in Microbiology. He also completed an M.Sc. in Biological Sciences from Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan in 2022. During my master’s program, Michael developed a keen interest in the field of biosensors and made significant contributions to virus detection. Specifically, he designed a simple and sensitive enzyme-linked oligonucleotide assay (ELONA) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. This research showcased the potential of aptamers as an alternative to antibodies, particularly in clinical diagnosis. Michael has joined Prof. Nicolas Voelcker’s research group, where they aim to address the growing demand for a more reliable and convenient method of measuring cell culture conditions. To achieve this, his PhD project will focus on developing an affinity-based biosensor for cell culture quality control.
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Aeolus has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science graduate, with an honours degree in Science, specifically in biochemistry. He is interested in stem cells and materials engineering for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering applications. His undergraduate project studied the effects of the extracellular matrix stiffness on the paracrine signalling of mesenchymal stromal cells. Within CTET, he is working with Jessica Frith on tissue engineering spinal disc replacement.
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Yuanqi Zhao completed a Bachelor degree in Materials Engineering and graduated from Monash University in 2023. She started a PhD project in regard to materials for control of directed differentiation of iPSC-derived T cells under the supervision of Prof. Laurence Meagher and Assoc. Prof. Tracy Heng in 2024, where she will be working with Industry Partner, Cartherics.
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Jessica graduated from an undergraduate degree in Marketing in 2017 and entered her first industry job as the marketing manager for a Brisbane plastic surgeon specialising in breast surgery. During this time she was undertaking an Honours degree part time investigating the customer experience of cosmetic breast augmentation and the role of virtual simulation 3D technology in shaping this customer experience. Her PhD area of investigation has now extended to cosmetic biomedical innovation to understand the marketing communications most suitable to reducing innovation resistance to new technologies for cosmetic surgery. This research looks at the direct-to-consumer perspective given the increasing trend towards DTC advertising and the increasing autonomy of patients in decision-making for cosmetic procedures.
Zaimao Peng acquired first class honour bachelor degree of engineering at the beginning of 2021. In his final year of undergraduate study, he did a final year project of 3D bioprinting with Professor Laurence Meagher. The project aimed to find out the correlation between rheological property of hydrogel and the printability. He started his PhD candidature after graduation and continued to work with Laurence on the synthesis of bioink of 3D bioprinting for regenerative medicine.
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Julien Clegg completed a biomedical science degree at QUT. During the later years he was involved in WILS (work integrated learning studies) in which he worked with Dr Laura Bray’s research group. He is currently completing a PhD in conjunction with CTET Partner Organisation, Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research.
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Sofia is currently completing her Master’s degree at QUT in conjunction with CTET partner organization, TissueGUARD. Her project focuses on validating novel hydrogel materials for its application in lung and breast cancer research. Sofia’s interest in oncology stems from her earlier studies where she completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science at The University of Queensland in 2020. In her final year of undergraduate study, she acquired volunteer work experience with Dr Laura Bray’s research team, where her interest truly catalysed into her passion.