News

Activities and achievements of our group members.

2023

Hazem Alkazemi and Kai Mayer presented their research projects at  TERMIS EU.

Kai Mayer & Hazem Alkazemi at TERMIS EU

The group had a great time networking and presenting their work at ASBTE 2023 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Shaveen Gamage at ASBTE 2023 Xin Li at ASBTE 2023Tao Huang at ASBTE 2023Anna Trengove at ASBTE 2023

Shirin Nour at ASBTE 2023Matthew Mail at ASBTE 2023Anna-Lena Bauknecht at ASBTE 2023

Congratulations to Anna Trengove for winning the ASBTE 2023 Best Rapid-Fire Presentation Award!

Anna Trengove wins the Best Rapid-Fire Presentation award at ASBTE 2023

2022

Andrea O'Connor was featured in a video celebrating women in engineering.

Andrea O’Connor received the 2022 Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Award for Research Excellence. Read an article on her work at: https://research.unimelb.edu.au/research-updates/engineering-new-solutions

Long Nguyen, supervised by Brooke Farrugia, received the Student Poster Presentation Runner Up Award at the 27th Annual Conference for the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering.

Andrea O’Connor, Brooke Farrugia and Daniel Heath were members of the Organising Committee for the 27th Annual Conference for the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at Melbourne Connect.

27th Annual Conference for the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at Melbourne Connect.

Millicent Sullivan, Alvin B. and Julie O. Stiles Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Delaware, USA joined us for a sabbatical as a Fulbright Future Fellow.

2021

Andrea O’Connor and Daniel Heath, partnering with Thomas Scheibel from University of Bayreuth, Germany were awarded a Study Melbourne Research Partnerships grant delivered by veski to develop multidimensional biomaterials for tissue repair.

Andrea O’Connor was appointed as the inaugural Shanahan Chair in Frontier Medical Solutions at the University of Melbourne and ACMD.

January 2019

A delegation of researchers and postgraduate students from University of Bayreuth, Germany visited the group and participated in a joint 2-day workshop on Targeting Tissue run by University of Melbourne, University of Bayreuth and CSIRO.

November 2018

Andrea O’Connor gave an invited talk on “Developing antimicrobial nanomaterials” at the National Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship Forum in Melbourne.

Andrea O’Connor gave a presentation at the Lyceum Club on “Engineering meets medicine with 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering”.

August 2018

Andrea O’Connor, Daniel Heath, Geraldine Mitchell, Neil O’Brien-Simpson, and Phil Lewis awarded a grant for Fighting drug resistant bacteria on medical devices from the Victorian Medical Research Acceleration Fund.

Assoc Prof Andrea O’Connor delivers a keynote lecture on “Antimicrobial nanobiomaterials for scaffolds and medical devices” at The 9th Vacuum and Surface Science Conference of Asia and Australia in Sydney.

July 2018

Our work was featured in 3010 magazine: Taking on the superbugs.

Assoc Prof Andrea O’Connor, PhD candidate Tao Huang and Master of Engineering (Biomedical) students Emma Moore and Esther Chen visit the University of Bayreuth, Germany for the Bayreuth International Summer School on Biofabrication. Andrea also delivers an invited lecture for the SFB-Transregio: From the basics of biofabrication to functional tissue models.

Students and staff networking in Bayreuth

February 2018

Our research on developing nanoparticles to fight drug resistance was featured in Pursuit: Enlisting nanoparticles in the fight against superbugs.

November 2017

Our research on Broad spectrum antimicrobial nanoparticles to fight drug resistant bacteria was awarded a Commendation in the HealthTech Innovation Challenge Finals, Graeme Clark Institute.

July 2017

Andrea O’Connor joined the Bayreuth International Summer School in Germany to lecture students on Biofabrication.

Fatemeh recieving the 2016 Treloar Prize, pictured with Greg Qiao.

November 2016

Fatemeh Karimi wins the Treloar Prize at the 36th Australasian Polymer Symposium, awarded by the RACI for outstanding oral and poster presentations by young polymer scientists at National or International Polymer Division Meetings.

May 2016

Andrea O’Connor presents an invited talk on Regulating mechanics in tissue engineering using magnetic forces and tunable hydrogels at the International Workshop on Molecular, Cell and Tissue Mechanobiology hosted by Tsinghua University, Beijing.

The conference group esembled at Tsinghua University.

October 2015

Andrea O’Connor presents recent results on Anti-infective Medical Device Coatings at the Australasian Military Medicine Association Conference in Hobart.

April 2015

Research group participates in The Workshop on Expanding Collaborative Links in Mechanobiology in Melbourne with visiting researchers from around Australasia.

April 2014

Javad Jafari awarded the Best Poster Award at the Australian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Annual Conference in Lorne.

March 2014

Andrea O’Connor awarded the Edward Brown Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Melbourne.

October 2013

Andrea O’Connor reports on binding particles to cells in Nature.

Nature News & Views includes a report by Prof Frank Caruso and Assoc Prof Andrea O’Connor, both from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Melbourne. They discuss recent research focused on finding a way to control how particles bind to cells, which could lead to opportunities to further biomedical research and applications. The short report in Nature looks at how particles can be designed to deliver payloads of therapeutic drugs and organise cells.

Andrea O’Connor wins Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology Academic Staff Award for Teaching Excellence.

July 2013

Andrea O’Connor writes on how 3D printers could be life savers, The Melbourne Engineer.

Andrea O’Connor co-authored an article in The Conversation, 1 July 2013, about the potential of 3D printing to improve human health in future with Bernard Meade and Paul Mignone: Don’t shun 3D printers — they might save your life one day