The Material Science of Biomimetic Soft Network Composites. Nature combines stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a weak polymer matrix of proteoglycans into soft tissues with outstanding mechanical durability and biological properties. We converge a biomimetic design strategy inspired in the architecture of natural soft tissues and a novel additive manufacturing technology termed melt electrowriting (MEW) to manufacture advanced biomimetic soft network composites (BSNC). The SNCs ....The Material Science of Biomimetic Soft Network Composites. Nature combines stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a weak polymer matrix of proteoglycans into soft tissues with outstanding mechanical durability and biological properties. We converge a biomimetic design strategy inspired in the architecture of natural soft tissues and a novel additive manufacturing technology termed melt electrowriting (MEW) to manufacture advanced biomimetic soft network composites (BSNC). The SNCs are composed of a weak polymer matrix and a MEW reinforcing fibrous phase printed at the nanometre scale, containing patterns mimicking the natural tissue architectures. Advanced computational tools are applied for the rational design of the SNC while reducing costs and times associated to experimental work.Read moreRead less
Tissue Bio-physicochemical Quantification Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. This project aims to develop novel magnetic resonance imaging methods to investigate tissue structure and function. Current MRI technologies use standard water-based contrast mechanisms to generate images with limited tissue information. In contrast, this project expects to provide a non-invasive, ultra-high-resolution MRI technology that measures the electrical, magnetic, and chemical signals generated from the human bo ....Tissue Bio-physicochemical Quantification Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. This project aims to develop novel magnetic resonance imaging methods to investigate tissue structure and function. Current MRI technologies use standard water-based contrast mechanisms to generate images with limited tissue information. In contrast, this project expects to provide a non-invasive, ultra-high-resolution MRI technology that measures the electrical, magnetic, and chemical signals generated from the human body. Thus, the new imaging methods can probe deeper biological functionality while examining tissue structure. The potential benefits include: expanding the scope and capabilities of current MRI, facilitating a wide range of imaging-based research and applications, and accelerating knowledge expansion in life science.Read moreRead less
Mid-Career Industry Fellowships - Grant ID: IM230100534
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$874,096.00
Summary
NOVEL MASS-SCALE BIOSYNTHESIS: TAILORING CHEMICAL LOGIC & BIOSYNTHESIS. No new antibiotics against Gram-negative ‘superbugs’ are expected to be available in the near future. We have exhausted the chemical space from the natural product pool and lack a fundamental understanding of antibiotics in nature, this is a major hurdle for antibiotic design targeting bacterial resistance. This proposal aims to engineer unique chemo-enzymatic platforms for the synthesis of new lipopeptide scaffolds which wi ....NOVEL MASS-SCALE BIOSYNTHESIS: TAILORING CHEMICAL LOGIC & BIOSYNTHESIS. No new antibiotics against Gram-negative ‘superbugs’ are expected to be available in the near future. We have exhausted the chemical space from the natural product pool and lack a fundamental understanding of antibiotics in nature, this is a major hurdle for antibiotic design targeting bacterial resistance. This proposal aims to engineer unique chemo-enzymatic platforms for the synthesis of new lipopeptide scaffolds which will significantly expand the chemical space available for novel antibiotic discovery. The development of these unique platforms will greatly expand our inventory of natural product antibiotics and will represent a major technological break-through for Australia's biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors.Read moreRead less
Photoacoustic cellular manipulation: building from the bottom up. In this project we propose an approach for creating complex 3D prints. Whereas current approaches are limited to defining the external geometry, this technology will permit the organization of the internal structure as well, with the potential to do so at the scale of individual cells. Achieving this has important applications in bioprinting human tissues and additive manufacturing. This is based on the manipulation of particles a ....Photoacoustic cellular manipulation: building from the bottom up. In this project we propose an approach for creating complex 3D prints. Whereas current approaches are limited to defining the external geometry, this technology will permit the organization of the internal structure as well, with the potential to do so at the scale of individual cells. Achieving this has important applications in bioprinting human tissues and additive manufacturing. This is based on the manipulation of particles and cells using holographic acoustic fields controlled by patterned light. This is compared to current acoustic patterning approaches are mostly limited to static simple geometric arrangements and lack the flexibility to produce arbitrary, rapidly changing fields that enable the fabrication of complex structures. Read moreRead less