Sydney Nano
Monthly Newsletter
May 2023
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Message from the Acting Interim DirectorWelcome to the May edition of our monthly newsletter. There is much to celebrate this month as our members are recognised for their outstanding achievements. Congratulations to Professor Richard Payne on being elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, as well as Professor Michael Kassiou on securing a $273 million partnership with global pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim.
I am also pleased to announce the winners of two Sydney Nano funded schemes; our newly created Mobility Awards, for HDRs and ECRs, and our popular Taste of Research awards for undergraduate students. Read below to find out the winners of these schemes.
May was a busy month for the Sydney Nano community. We held two public events focused on how nanotechnology can be used to solve critical environmental and health issues - the Sydney Ideas public lecture and our NanoPitch event. Congratulations to Dr Hien Duong on winning first place at NanoPitch for her talk on how nanorobots can be used to combat antimicrobial resistance. In exciting news, planning is underway for the Network for Sustainable Nanotechnology's (N4SN)'s global summit to be held at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub in November. This three-day conference will be focused on the theme "Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy Security", in alignment with UN SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy. The website is now live, and we encourage you to check back regularly as more details become available. More information on abstract submission and program details will be announced shortly. In June, Sydney Nano will host two seminars with distinguished Professors Weibo Cai and John Rogers. You can register for these events below - I hope to see you there!
Associate Professor Girish Lakhwani
Acting Interim Director, Sydney Nano
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Kinoxis Therapeutics spinout secures $273m deal to develop drugs for psychiatric disordersCongratulations to Sydney Nano Member Professor Michael Kassiou, Kinoxis co-founder and director of the Drug Discovery Initiative, on partnering with global pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim to develop oxytocin-targeting precision treatments aimed at improving the quality of life for people living with psychiatric disorders. Read more here. Congratulations!
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Prof Richard Payne elected as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
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Upcoming Sydney Nano SeminarsKeep an eye out for future communications on two upcoming Sydney Nano Seminars. If you are interested in meeting either Professor Cai or Professor Rogers after their talks, please email Sydney Nano.
- Thurs 15 June 10am - 11am: Seminar by Professor Weibo Cai: "(Cancer) Theranostics with (Intrinsically) Radiolabeled Nanomaterials" | Register here
- Mon 19 June 2pm - 3pm: Seminar by Professor John Rogers: "Nanomaterials for 3D Mesosystems: From Neural Interfaces to Environmental Monitors" | Register here
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ARC Early Career Industry Fellowship successCongratulations to Sydney Nano Member Dr Yi-Sheng (Eason) Chen on being awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Early Career Industry Fellowship! These Fellowships support early career researchers to work with industry partners, driving collaboration and commercialisation of research outcomes. Read more here.
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Sydney Nano Mobility Award WinnersCongratulations to the recipients of the Sydney Nano Mobility Award. This award enables overseas research to be undertaken with our priority partner institutions.
ECR Winners:
HDR Winners:
- Yvonne Kong, Heart Research Institute
- Haiyi Zhong, School of Civil Engineering
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Scalable solutions for climate change: Sydney Ideas public lecture
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Prof Anita Ho-Baillie finalist for Australian Space Awards
- Academic of the Year
- Academic Research Team of the Year
- Scientist of the Year
- Start-up of the Year
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NanoPitch: Driving Health InnovationLast month, Sydney Nano held our inaugural NanoPitch event, showcasing some of the outstanding research that our members are working on. Hosted by Prof Stephanie Watson OAM and featuring expert judges Prof Tony Weiss, Prof Julie Cairney, and Dr John Kurek, our pitchers had the opportunity to share their research with industry leaders in health, academic partners, and our community. Congratulations to Dr Hien Duong for winning first place and Dr Matthew Griffith for runner up! Read more about the event here.
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Prof Stephanie Watson on the Ophthalmologist's Power List
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Sydney Nano Taste of Research Award WinnersCongratulations to the recipients of the Sydney Nano Taste of Research Awards for Round 1 2023. The awardees will have the opportunity to develop research skills, gain experience, and contribute to finding real-world solutions through a six-week period of research on a full-time basis. Congratulations to:
- Andrew Li, School of Physics, academic supervisor Dr Dominic Williamson
- Chung-Wei (Roy) Hsu, School of Medical Sciences, academic supervisor A/Prof Khoon Lim
- Joshua Cosgrove, School of Biomedical Engineering, academic supervisor Dr Daniele Vigolo
- Rachel Lee, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, academic supervisor Dr Anastasia Globa
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Recent visits to Sydney Nano
We thank our recent guests for visiting Sydney Nano to learn about the transformational research undertaken at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub:
- 3 May: Senator the Honorable Sarah Henderson, Shadow Minister for Education
- 4 May: Tech Central Sydney - Walking Tour for the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator
- 15 May: Professor Marcel Dinger, Dean of Science at the University of Sydney
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Award & Grant Opportunities - University of Sydney and University of Glasgow Ignition Grants | Provides researchers, especially ECRs, with the opportunity to work with our strategic partner in developing joint research projects | More information | Applications close Monday 12 June 2023
- AmCham Alliance Awards recognising emerging and exceptional leaders in the first two-thirds of their career in Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Digital Economy, Energy and Clean Technology, Quantum, or Space | Nominations close Sunday 18 June 2023
- Falling Walls Lab Sydney | Submit your application to pitch your research to peers, a high-calibre jury of experts from academia and business, and the general public at this competition | More information | Applications close 5pm 2 July 2023
- USDA Nanotechnology for Agricultural and Food Systems funding | Grants valued at up to $800,000 USD | More information (p. 71) | Applications close Thursday 14 Sept 2023
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In case you missed it...
- In one of Dr Natalie Holmes' lectures for the new NANO4001 (Modern Nanoscience) course, the class had the opportunity to virtually tour the Swiss Light Source synchrotron with her research collaborator Dr Ben Watts in Switzerland.
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Media Highlights
- Gizmodo, Canada Today, Sustainability Matters and My Modern Met reported on a fungus being used to biodegrade plastic developed by Professor Ali Abbas and Amira Farzana Samat from the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
- Create reported Professor Ali Abbas from the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering had been announced as Chief Circular Engineer at Circular Australia.
- The Age interviewed Professor Stephen Bartlett from the Faculty of Science about the National Quantum Strategy.
- Reuters interviewed Dr Michael Seymour from the Business School about Hollywood writers and producers arguing about artificial intelligence.
- The Sydney Morning Herald and the Newcastle Herald reported Professor Michael Kassiou from the Faculty of Science and the Brain and Mind Centre signed a $273 million partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim to investigate drugs that treat aggression and social withdrawal in people with various psychiatric disorders.
- The Sydney Morning Herald published a picture of Professor Kassiou in the labs in its ‘photos of the week’ column.
- 2GB interviewed Professor Richard De Dear from the School of Architecture, Design and Planning about sound proofing buildings.
- The Conversation published an article by Dr Jarryd Daymond from the Business School about Australia’s National Quantum Strategy.
- The Conversation published an article by Professor Alex Broom from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences about male friendships. The Daily Mail syndicated the article.
- 2SER interviewed Dr Jarryd Daymond from the Business School about quantum technologies.
- The Australian, The Guardian and Cosmos interviewed Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou from the Faculty of Science about the government’s hydrogen program.
- Cosmos interviewed Professor Ali Abbas and PhD student Amira Farzana Samat from the Faculty of Engineering on their research into biodegrading plastics using fungi.
- SBS News interviewed Dr Eason Chen from the Faculty of Engineering on the federal budget's $2 billion allocated to hydrogen energy.
- 4ZZZ interviewed Dr Jarryd Daymond from the Business School about the National Quantum Strategy.
- The Courier Mail interviewed Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou from the Faculty of Science about the cost of hydrogen fuel.
- The Australian interviewed Professor François Aguey-Zinsou from the Faculty of Science about the $2 billion allocated for hydrogen in the Federal Budget. He said hydrogen uptake is still relatively expensive as it has never been deployed at scale.
- Government News reported on green concrete research by Professor Ali Abbas in the School of Civil Engineering, which is being used as paving on the University’s Darlington campus.
- The New Daily interviewed Dr Michael Seymour from the Business School about Hollywood using artificial intelligence.
- Cosmos interviewed Professor Peter Tuthill from the Faculty of Science about building a low earth orbit telescope.
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Member Publications
- Ahmadzada, T., Vijayan, A., Vafaee, F., Azimi, A., Reid, G., Clarke, S., Kao, S., Grau, G. E., & Hosseini-Beheshti, E. (2023). Small and Large Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Pleural Mesothelioma Cell Lines Offer Biomarker Potential. Cancers, 15(8), 2364.
- Cousins, A., Krishnan, S., Krishnan, G., Pham, N., Milanova, V., Nelson, M., Shetty, A., Ikoma, N., & Thierry, B. (2023). Preclinical evaluation of sentinel node localization in the stomach via mannose-labelled magnetic nanoparticles and indocyanine green. Surgical Endoscopy.
- Gough, P., Perera, P. B., Kertesz, M. A., & Withana, A. (2023). Design, Mould, Grow!: A Fabrication Pipeline for Growing 3D Designs Using Myco-Materials. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–15.
- Hall, L. A., D’Alessandro, D. M., & Lakhwani, G. (2023). Chiral metal–organic frameworks for photonics. Chemical Society Reviews, 52(10), 3567–3590.
- Hawtrey, T., & New, E. J. (2023). Molecular probes for fluorescent sensing of metal ions in non-mammalian organisms. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 74, 102311.
- Laval, H., Holmes, A., Marcus, M. A., Watts, B., Bonfante, G., Schmutz, M., Deniau, E., Szymanski, R., Lartigau‐Dagron, C., Xu, X., Cairney, J. M., Hirakawa, K., Awai, F., Kubo, T., Wantz, G., Bousquet, A., Holmes, N. P., & Chambon, S. (2023). Toward High Efficiency Water Processed Organic Photovoltaics: Controlling the Nanoparticle Morphology with Surface Energies. Advanced Energy Materials.
- Loeffler, A., Diaz-Alvarez, A., Zhu, R., Ganesh, N., Shine, J. M., Nakayama, T., & Kuncic, Z. (2023). Neuromorphic learning, working memory, and metaplasticity in nanowire networks. Science Advances, 9(16).
- Phan, T. H., Shi, H., Denes, C. E., Cole, A. J., Wang, Y., Cheng, Y. Y., Hesselson, D., Roelofs, S. H., Neely, G. G., Jang, J.-H., & Chrzanowski, W. (2023). Advanced pathophysiology mimicking lung models for accelerated drug discovery. Biomaterials Research, 27(1), 35.
- Wang, Z., Pereira, J.-M., Sauret, E., & Gan, Y. (2023). Wettability impacts residual trapping of immiscible fluids during cyclic injection. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 961, A19.
- Wang, Z., Ye, Q., Yu, S., & Akhavan, B. (2023). Poly Ethylene Glycol (PEG)‐Based Hydrogels for Drug Delivery in Cancer Therapy: A Comprehensive Review. Advanced Healthcare Materials.
- Zhao, H., Zheng, Z., Jiang, T., Fu, L., Akhavan, B., Bilek, M. M., & Liu, Z. (2023). High entropy alloy thin films on SS304 substrates: Evolution of microstructure and interface modulated by energetic condensation in nanoscale. Materials & Design, 230, 111981.
- Zheng, H., Wu, B., Li, S., He, J., Liu, Z., Wang, C.-T., Wang, J.-T., Duan, J., & Liu, Y. (2023). Strain-tunable valley polarization and localized excitons in monolayer WSe2. Optics Letters, 48(9), 2393.
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