Title: Nanoengineered plasma polymer films for biomedical applications

Biography:

In my talk, I will present recent developments from my lab on various biomaterial coatings that are facilitated by plasma deposition. These include antibacterial coatings, drug release platforms and cell guidance/capture surfaces.

Undesired bacterial adhesion and subsequent colonisation of medical devices is a substantial medical problem causing complex and sometime fatal infections. We have developed various strategies for generation of antibacterial coatings that can be applied to medical device surfaces. These involve means such as silver nanoparticles, antibiotics, nitric oxide, quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) or simply coatings that have intrinsic low fouling properties. All these coatings are facilitated by plasma deposition, a technique that provides functional films placed to the surface of any type of material. Important for applications, we not only extensively test our coating for their antibacterial efficacy against medically relevant pathogens but also assess their potential cytotoxicity to mammalian cell and inflammatory consequences. We have also developed methods for the synthesis and surface immobilisation of hybrid antibacterial nanocapsules and nanoparticles, including such capable of triggered release.  

 

In a second part of my talk I outline our work on developing advanced nanoengineered plasma polymer coatings capable of directing cellular behaviour including adhesion, proliferation, differentiation and migration. We have developed unique capabilities to control and tailor entire spectrum of surface properties such as chemistry, wettability, ligand densities, nanomechanics and nanotopography in a substrate independent fashion. We can tailor all these surface properties in a gradient manner too. I will demonstrate how we use surface gradients of nanoparticles density to study the influence of surface nanotopography on the behavior of various cell types, including immune cells and I will outline how we guide the differentiation of stem cells by tailoring surface chemistry, nanotopography or density of signalling molecules.

 

I will also briefly present drug delivery and release platforms that we have developed including a method for solvent free encapsulation of drug particles. A recently developed device for selective cancer cell capture for complex liquids and how it is used for diagnostic of bladder cancer will also be presented.

 

Abstract

I completed my PhD at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany in 2004. After a short postdoctoral stay as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute of Genomics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Strasbourg, France, in 2005, I accepted a research position at the University of South Australia. I was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in March 2009. In 2010, I was awarded the prestigious Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. I was promoted to Associate Professor in January 2012. I have held positions such as Associate Head of School-Research (2012-2013) and Research Education Portfolio Leader (2014-2015). In 2016, I was awarded two prestigious fellowships i.e. the Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Humboldt Foundation and a Research Fellowship from National Health and Medical Research Council. In 2018, I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

 

In addition to four prestigious research fellowships, I have received various honors and awards. Most recently, I was awarded the John A. Brodie Medal for achievements in Chemical Engineering in 2016 and the International Association of Advanced Materials Medal (IAAM medal) for contributions to the field of Advanced Materials in the year 2017.

I have been awarded research funding in excess of 20 million dollars. I have published more than 170 research papers, reviews and book chapters. I am the inventor of five patents which underpin technologies currently under translation to commercialization.

My research also results in translation of research discoveries to tangible commercial outcomes. A bladder cancer diagnostic technology developed in my laboratory is currently being translated to the manufacturing facility of the industrial partner. This commercial development is supported by a 10 million dollar project funded by the industrial partner and the federal government. In addition to technology transfer, I am also leading a large, 1000 patient clinical trial required for validation of the technology.