Sydney Nano
Monthly Newsletter - January 2021
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Message from the Director
Happy New Year and welcome back! I hope you enjoyed time off or even time away and look forward to a positive and productive 2021.
2021 will be an exciting year for Sydney Nano.
We plan to expand our research activities. With the institute’s NanoHealth Network established, we will progress scoping groups for other potential Networks; Smart Sustainable Buildings and Defence & Aerospace just had the first meeting, and BraiNano, which will launch soon. I am very pleased to announce the latest Sydney Nano Catalyst; Developing Interdisciplinary Expertise, a joint project with FASS and ADP researching how university researchers and students develop the expertise needed to work in interdisciplinary teams. We will open the second round of Expressions of Interest for our Grand Challenge scheme around mid-year. Look out for it. And we hope we receive further Expressions of Interest for our Frontier, Catalyst and Kickstarter schemes throughout the year.
In December, the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer published a scoping study for a roadmap for NSW to accelerate participation in the lucrative semiconductor industry written by our Deputy Director Professor Jim Rabeau. What a wonderful example of how Sydney Nano impacts our economy and society.
The award of a LIEF grant to Professor Hala Zreiqat and Sydney University academics including Sydney Nano Members; Professor Simon Fleming, Professor Alistair McEwan and Dr Mohamad Mirkhalaf, for the purchase of a Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT2 Two-Photon 3D Printer will provide an exciting addition to the infrastructure for nano research.
Our Distinguished Lecture series will kick off with Professor Victor Zhirnov presenting; Decadal Plan for Semiconductors: 2030 ICT research goals on Friday 26 February. More details and the invitation will be circulated shortly. During 2021 we plan to invite several distinguished speakers from our strategic global partner nano institutes. Throughout the coming year we will continue to connect and engage with our community through webinars and social media.
I congratulate Professor Jun Huang on his ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lecturing Award, Professor Hala Zreiqat on election to ATSE, and all the Sydney Nano Members who received academic promotions, please see the article below for the full list. I would also like to congratulate our inaugural winners of the Sydney Nano Taste of Research Awards and Rex Wang from the Sydney Nano ASU on his SHINE! Award. Well done to all.
And finally, huge congratulations to our experts at Sydney Nano, for the publication of their correspondence in Nature Biotechnology Research priorities for COVID-19 sensor technology, a collaboratively created roadmap how sensor technology can be advanced and implemented to strengthen society's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and better prepare us for future pandemics. The full list of co-authors is in the article below.
I very much look forward to working with the Sydney Nano community as we meet the challenges of the year ahead.
Professor Ben Eggleton
Director Sydney Nano
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Big push into nano medicine at The University of Sydney
Nano health or nano medicine is the construction of devices at the cellular level, which move around the body monitoring health or delivering medicine or genes for therapy. These are roughly one-tenth of a millimetre in size. Prof Ben Eggleton describes some of the opportunities in nano medicine and how it has become a big focus at The University of Sydney bringing together researchers from a range of disciplines. Listen to the interview with Prof Eggleton on ABC Radio's Science Show
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New Scoping Study Delivers Roadmap for NSW to Accelerate Participation in the Lucrative Semiconductor Industry
A new report, commissioned by the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer and produced by The University of Sydney Nano Institute, has identified opportunities for NSW to increase significantly its contribution to the global semiconductor market. This report was led by Prof James Rabeau, Sydney Nano Deputy Director for Innovation, Industry and Commercialisation. Read more
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EoI Members for Members - Grant Application Advice
Some of our most successful senior Members have agreed to become part of the Sydney Nano Grant Advisory Group supporting other Members to enhance their grant application and success.
If you are a Level A-D Member of Sydney Nano and are in the process of preparing an ARC Discovery Grant application with a preferably multidisciplinary aspect, you can express your interest in getting strategic advice from one of our most experienced Members.
Simply fill in the EoI form, upload your current grant application draft and you will get feedback from one of our grant advisors.
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New Catalyst Node: Developing Interdisciplinary Expertise
The Sydney Nano Executive Committee has endorsed a new Catalyst node. The node is externally funded and will be researching how university researchers and students develop the expertise needed to work in interdisciplinary teams and how this development can be enhanced. The team will work with research nodes at Sydney Nano and the CPC. The study combines three perspectives investigating: how research and innovation communities create interdisciplinary knowledge, how interdisciplinary teams learn to function effectively and the personal resourcefulness that enables individuals to participate in interdisciplinary work. The node team comprise Lina Markauskaite, Peter Goodyear, Celina McEwen (all from FASS) and Cara Wrigley (ADP).
Please consider taking part in this study. Being involved entails talking to the researchers about your multidisciplinary projects and/or allowing to observe how you work on multidisciplinary projects.
For further information visit the project’s website. If you are interested, please email Celina McEwen or Lina Markauskaite.
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3D Nanoprinting capabilities coming soon
Prof Hala Zreiqat from the School of Biomedical Engineering, supported by Sydney Nano and Core Research Facilities, was awarded an ARC LIEF grant to purchase the Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT2 Two-Photon 3D Printer enabling tailor-made material architectures at the nanoscale.
These allow the design of unique optical, mechanical, electrical, chemical, biochemical, and acoustic properties enabling a wealth of cutting-edge research activities in a variety of fields including mechanical/optical/electrical metamaterials, bioinspired hard/soft materials, biomaterials, biomedical devices, nanofluidics, and photonic crystals.
Additional Chief Investigators from the University of Sydney are Prof Ben Eggleton, Prof Simon Fleming, Prof Alistair McEwan, Dr Mohamad Mirkhalaf and Dr Carmine Gentile.
The application was inspired by the 2019 Sydney Nano Public Lecture “Nano 3D Printing: material beyond imagination” provided by Prof Martin Wegener, Inventor and Founder of Nanoscribe.
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Sydney Nano Member 2020 Academic Promotions
Congratulations to the following Sydney Nano Members who have received academic promotions in 2020. We are grateful to many on the list who have very active roles within the institute and contribute to our successes. Many hold leadership roles including on our ExComm, node/cluster leaders in our Research Program, and ECR Ambassadors. Most of our current Grand Challenge leaders have been promoted since starting their Sydney Nano Grand Challenge in 2019, some of them even twice!
Level E:
Jun Huang, Faculty of Engineering
Wojciech Chrzanowski, Faculty of Medicine and Health
Corinne Caillaud, Faculty of Medicine and Health
Margaret Sunde, Faculty of Medicine and Health
Siegbert Schmid, Faculty of Science
Daniel Tan, Faculty of Science
Deanna D’Alessandro, Faculty of Science
Elizabeth New, Faculty of Science
Rongkun Zheng, Faculty of Science
Level D:
Yixiang Gan, Faculty of Engineering
Alejandro Montoya, Faculty of Engineering
Girish Lakhwani, Faculty of Science
Level C:
Liwei Li, Faculty of Engineering
Ralph Holz, Faculty of Engineering
Ling Zhu, Faculty of Medicine and Health
Arne Grimsmo, Faculty of Science
Cornelius Hempel, Faculty of Science
Yu Heng Lau, Faculty of Science
Alessandro Tuniz, Faculty of Science
Level B:
Yi-Sheng Chen, Faculty of Engineering
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Nature Biotechnology Correspondence
Research priorities for COVID-19 sensor technology has been published in Nature Biotechnology. This was an initiative of the Sydney Nano Nanohealth Network in partnership with the Marie Bashir Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity and falls under the sensors and diagnostics cluster led by Sydney Nano Members Corinne Caillaud and David Martin-Martinez.
From Sydney Nano the lead authors are Corinne Caillaud, Wojciech Chrzanowski, Eugena Li, David Martinez-Martin, Alistair McEwan, Rex Wang, Alice Motion, Alvaro Casas Bedoya, Jun Huang, Lamiae Azizi & Benjamin J. Eggleton.
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Hala Zreiquat elected to prestigious acadamy
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Jun Huang wins ACS Award in sustainability
Congratulations to CO2 Zero Grand Challenge Champion, A/Prof Jun Huang, for winning the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award in the Asia/Pacific region. A/Prof Huang is honored for the development of sustainable catalytic technologies for refining and biorefining and wastes/CO2 conversion to fuels and chemicals. Read more
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Sydney Nano ASU staff member receives SHINE! Award
Congratulation to Rex Wang, Sydney Nano Project Officer, for receiving a Research Portfolio SHINE! Award for his outstanding contribution in 2020.
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Upcoming Events
- Microfluidics Consortium Open Day Meeting California.
Thursday 4 Feb 2021 4:30am – 2pm AEDT
Free registration for Sydney Nano Members and Participants (More information here) - Meet the Author: Halide Migration in Mixed Lead Halide Perovskites
Tuesday 16 Feb 2021 10am – 11am AEDT - Distinguish Lecture - Victor Zhirnov - Decadal Plan for Semiconductors: 2030 ICT research goals
Friday 26 Feb 2021 11am – 12pm AEDT
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Members Publication
- Hall, A.J., Robertson, A.G., Hill, L.R., Rendina, L.M Synthesis and tumour cell uptake studies of gadolinium(III)–phosphonium complexes (2021) Scientific Reports, 11 (1), art. no. 598, .
- Hu, L., Zhao, Q., Huang, S., Zheng, J., Guan, X., Patterson, R., Kim, J., Shi, L., Lin, C.-H., Lei, Q., Chu, D., Tao, W., Cheong, S., Tilley, R.D., Ho-Baillie, A.W.Y., Luther, J.M., Yuan, J., Wu, T. Flexible and efficient perovskite quantum dot solar cells via hybrid interfacial architecture (2021) Nature Communications, 12 (1), art. no. 466, .
- Huynh, V.T., Nguyen, D., Zhu, L., Pham, N.T.H., Priyananda, P., Hawkett, B.S.
Ultra-thin patchy polymer-coated graphene oxide as a novel anticancer drug carrier
(2021) Polymer Chemistry, 12 (1), pp. 92-104. - Nguyen, G., Postnova, S. Progress in modelling of brain dynamics during anaesthesia and the role of sleep-wake circuitry (2021) Biochemical Pharmacology, art. no. 114388, .
- Forder, T.N., Maschmeyer, P.G., Zeng, H., Roberts, D.A Post-synthetic ‘Click’ Synthesis of RAFT Polymers with Pendant Self-immolative Triazoles (2021) Chemistry - An Asian Journal, .
- Antunez, E.E., Mahon, C.S., Tong, Z., Voelcker, N.H., Mullner, M A Regenerable Biosensing Platform for Bacterial Toxins (2021) Biomacromolecules, .
- Smith, N.C., Wilkinson-White, L.E., Kwan, A.H.Y., Trewhella, J., Matthews, J.M. Contrasting DNA-binding behaviour by ISL1 and LHX3 underpins differential gene targeting in neuronal cell specification (2021) Journal of Structural Biology: X, 5, art. no. 100043, .
- Lai, H.Y., Setyawati, M.I., Ferhan, A.R., Divakarla, S.K., Chua, H.M., Cho, N.-J., Chrzanowski, W., Ng, K.W. Self-Assembly of Solubilized Human Hair Keratins (2021) ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, .
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Media Highlights
- The CIO Show podcast interviewed Dr Ben Brown from Sydney Nano and the School of Physics about quantum computing.
- The Australian and Computerworld covered the launch of the Sydney Quantum Academy, reporting on comments by Professor Michael Biercuk from Sydney Nano and Q-CTRL and Professor David Reilly from the School of Physics and Microsoft Quantum-Sydney.
- Startup Daily featured Agerris, a startup spun out of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, interviewing CEO Professor Salah Sukkarieh from the Faculty of Engineering.
- Cosmos Magazine quoted Professor Iver Cairns from the School of Physics and Sydney Nano in an article about CubeSats satellites.
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