At the BMSE Lab, we observe, simulate, and engineer tissue behaviour.

The BioMimetic Systems Engineering (BMSE) Laboratory at the University of Queensland (UQ) combines Tissue EngineeringComputational Biology, and Biomedical Image Analysis to study and solve biological and medical problems using biomimetic systems. 

We apply systems engineering to examine, model, engineer, optimise, control, scale, and automate dynamic multi-cellular biomaterial cultures, aligning with chemical engineering fundamentals and industry partners in transfusion medicine, haematology, (cerebro)vascular surgery, and radiology.

Our additive manufacturing of bloodblood vessels, and vascularised tissue from peripheral and cord blood-derived immune cells (MNCs), stem cells (HSCs), and endothelial progenitors (BOECs) aims to support patient-specific cell therapy manufacturing and preclinical testing platforms.

Contact us

Dr Mark C Allenby
Group Leader, Senior Lecturer

UQ Researchers@MCAllenby

 

 Open Positions at the BMSE Lab (please contact Mark for details)

Postdoc position openings

  • No funded postdoc openings at this time, please contact Mark if you are interest to co-apply for a fellowship funding opporitunity with our lab.

PhD/MPhil project openings:

Masters and Honors project openings:

Dr Mark C Allenby, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering

Mark leads the BioMimetic Systems Engineering (BMSE) Lab and is a Senior Lecturer of Biomedical Engineering in UQ's School of Chemical Engineering. Mark is an ARC DECRA Fellow (2022-2025), an Advance Queensland Fellow (2019-2022) and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at QUT. Depite being 5 years post-PhD, Mark has published over 40 papers, principally supervised 6 PhDs and 2 MPhil/RAs, co-supervised 7 PhDs and has been awarded more than $2.8m of funding as chief investigator across 17 competitive funding rounds in 4 years. Mark received a PhD and MSc in chemical engineering from Imperial College London, UK and has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and chemistry from Pepperdine University, USA. Mark's background includes the engineering of dynamic stem cell bioreactors for tissue biomanufacturing, automated signal and image processing for tissue diagnostics, and model-based optimisation and control of 4D cell systems.

Email: m.allenby@uq.edu.au

Dr Rose Ann Franco, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Rose Ann joined the BioMimetic Systems Engineering (BMSE) Lab as a Graduate Research Officer in April 2023 and became a postdoc with the conferral of her PhD in September 2023. Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Allenby, she will be working on the enrichment of endothelial colony forming cells (ECFCs) from mononuclear cell (MNC) populations isolation from peripehral and umbilical cord blood, and vascularisation of organoid models derived from MNCs. Prior to this, Rose Ann worked on guided chondrogenesis of bone marrow stromal cells in micropellet cultures using signalling molecules, pathway inhibition, and gene silencing as the focus of her PhD project at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research experience also included biomaterials fabrication and evaluation of its regenerative capabilities using in vitro and animal models at Soonchunhyang University, South Korea and microbial-derived nanocellulose production for tissue-engineering applications at University of the Philippines

Email: roseann.franco@uq.edu.au

Ms Chloe De Nys, 3rd Year PhD Student

Chloe is a second-year PhD stduent, focussing her research on developing a bioengineered cerebrovascular model that can simulate the physiological mechanobiology of an intracranial aneurysm, to aid surgical decision making. She graduated in 2021 from a Chemical and Biological Engineering degree at University of Queensland, with a dual Biomedical Sciences degree. Chloe also has a background in pharmaceutical chemistry, previously working as a student chemist at Viatris where she became skilled in High Preformance Liquid Chromatography. She is interested in combining chemical engineering, stem cell biology, computational modelling, and artificial intelligence to advance tissue engineering research and development. 

Email: c.denys@uq.net.au

Mr Ryan McKinnon, 3rd Year PhD Student

In 2022, Mr Ryan McKinnon began a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Mark Allenby with the goal of manufacturing lab-grown patient-specific grafts with inbuilt vascular conduits optimally designed for defect-specific regeneration. Mr McKinnon has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science and a Master’s in Medical Research (MMR). Previously under the mentorship of Associate Professor Andrew Bulmer (Griffith University, AUS), his research was centred around developing a pre-clinical biocompatibility assessment of medical devices, in humans. Since graduating from an MMR Ryan has worked in industry, most notably, a stage IIb/IIIa clinical trial and in an industry sponsored group at Griffith University. The methods utilised in his previous projects included flow cytometry, scanning electron microscopy, biochemical analysis, and functional medical device assessments (e.g., flow set-ups), sonography, microscopy and thromboelastometry. 

Email: r.mckinnon@uq.net.au

Ms Astrid Nausa Galeano, 2nd Year PhD Student

Astrid is a second-year PhD student at the UQ BioMimetic Systems Engineering (BMSE) Lab. Her project, under the supervision of Dr. Mark Allenby, seeks to understand how tridimensional tissue formation can be controlled by manipulating its environment, such as microscale structure and macroscale nutrient transport. To do so, she is studying the effect of 3D microscaffolds and culture designs on cell morphology, growth, maturation, and tissue organisation. She has a Bachelor and a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering, both at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Previously she has worked in the production of therapeutic recombinant proteins employing mammalian cell culture and bioreactor optimization. Her motiviation is to develop high-impact biomedical engineering applications to facilitate patients' access to state-of-the-art technologies. 

Email: g.nausagaleano@uq.edu.au

Mr Arturo Gonzalez Pont, Visiting MPhil Student

Email: a.gonzalezpont@uq.edu.au

Ms Alyssa Binder, Honors Thesis Researcher

Alyssa is currently completing a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and performing her final year research thesis on engineering pumping systems that can recapitulate aspects of cardiovascular flow within micro- and large-scale cell culture models. Alyssa is supervised by Mark Allenby, Chloe de Nys, and Ryan McKinnon.

Email: a.binder@student.uq.edu.au

Ms Alyssa Detterman, MBiotech Researcher

Alyssa is pursuing a Masters of Biotechnology at UQ while assisting the BioMimetic Systems Engineering Lab. She Graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science in Biology, where she assisted the Chemical Engineering Institute for Cellular and Metabolic Biology within the Alper Lab to research the enxymatic degredation of polyethylene terephthalate.

Email: a.detterman@uqconnect.edu.au

Alumni

Ms. Susana Costa Maia (2023-2024) University of Maastricht MSc Thesis Placement - Designing trabeculae-like MEW PCL structures for peripheral blood mononuclear cell adherence and expansion. Principally supervised by Ms. Astrid Nausa Galeano and Dr. Rose Ann Franco and co-supervised by Prof. Lorenzo Moroni. 

Mr. Harrison Krek (2023-2024) Honors Thesis Researcher - Video analysis algorithms for microvascular network formation. Co-Supervised by Dr. Ashley Murphy.

Dr. Brenna Devlin (PhD 2021-2024): Development of geometric melt electrowritten polycaprolactone scaffolds to optimise cellular growth and mechanobiology. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruff and Dr Naomi Paxton (QUT).

Dr. Ashley Murphy (2022-2024) Postdoctoral Fellow - Advanced microfluidic hydrogel chips to controllably organise gradient microvascular, adipose, and hematopoietic tissue formation. In partial collaboration with Australian Red Cross Lifeblood (Dr Rebecca Griffiths). Won an ECR EAIT Seed Grant and a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, currently at Maastricht University.

Dr. Sabrina Schoenborn (PhD, 2021-2024) PhD Candidate - Fluid-structure interactions in peripheral arteries: biomechanical coupling of in-silico, in-vitro, and cellular models with application to patient-specific femoral-popliteal bypass graft anastomoses. In collaboration with Princess Alexandra Hospital (Dr Yogeesan Sivakumaran - Vascular Surgery, Dr Thomas Lloyd - Radiology). Won the 2021 Bionics Queensland Start-Up Challenge. Currently Biomechanics Lead Engineer at Convergence Medical.

Mr. William Parker (BE (Hons), 2023) Honors Thesis Researcher - Unruptured intracranial aneurysm detection. Principally supervised by Mark and Ms. Chloe De Nys (UQ). Currently in MedTech industry.

Mr. Mingyang (Aaron) Yuan (MEng, 2022-2023) Masters Research Student - Biomechanics of soft robotic bioreactors. Principally supervised by Ms. Sabrina Schoenborn (UQ). Currently a PhD candidate at QUT (Zhiyong Li, Yi-Chin Toh).

Ms. Amé Badenhorst (BE (Hons), 2022-2023) Summer Research Student - Quantitative analysis of tissue vascularisation. Principally supervised by Dr. Ashley Murphy (UQ). Currently a ChE-BME student at UQ.

Mr. Trent Brooks-Richards (PhD, 2018-2022) - Co Supervisor - 3D printed composite biomaterials for personalised vascular implants. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruff and Dr Naomi Paxton (QUT). Currently in industry.

Mr. Mitchell Johnson (MPhil, 2020-2021) - Principal Supervisor - Medical image analysis of intracranial aneurysms. Currently a frontend engineer at Canva

Mr. Cody Fell (MPhil 2019-2020) - Principal Supervisor - Soft robotic devices for emulating vascular mechanobiology. Currently a PhD Student at Rice University (Omid Veiseh).

Ms. Victoria Nguyen (MSci, 2019) - Principal Supervisor - Histological imaging techniques and flexions of femoropoliteal arteries.  Currently a pathologist technician at Sullivan Nicolades.

Dr. Maureen Ross (PhD 2017-2021) - Co Supervisor - Novel imaging and bioprinting approaches for auricular cartilage reconstruction. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruf (QUT). Currently Medical Engineering Lead at VitalTrace.

Dr. Michael Chen (PhD 2017-2021) - Co Supervisor - Clinical applications of 3D printing in urological surgery. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruf (QUT). Currently a clinical urologist.

Dr. Rena Cruz (PhD 2017-2021) - Co Supervisor - Advanced 3D biofabrication appraoches for the treatment of microtia. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruf (QUT).

Dr. Matthew Lanaro (PhD 2017-2021) - Co Supervisor - Multi-material multi-scale biofabrication approaches. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruf (QUT). Currently a medical engineer at Genea Biomedx.

Dr. Naomi Paxton (PhD 2017-2020) - Co Supervisor - Additive manufacturing patient-specific porous high-density polyethylene surgical implants. Principally supervised by Prof Maria Woodruf (QUT). Currently a Senior Research Fellow at QUT.

 

The BioMimetic Systems Engineering (BMSE) Lab combines experimental and computational methods in tissue engineering, bioimage analysis, and computational biology to characterise blood and blood vessel growth and disease processes. Experimental methods include biomaterial fabrication, bioreactor and microfluidic chip engineering, stem cell & tissue isolation, haematopoietic and angiogenic cultures, imaging and cytokine analyses, and more. Computational methods include microscopy and medical image segmentation, co-localisation, shape analyses, and predictive models of cell populations (differential equations), single-cells (agent based), and tissue biomechanics (finite element). Currently-running projects include:

Diagnostic Culture Models to Screen Graft Versus Host Disease

Bone marrow and organ transplants have been a lifesaving option for 200,000 patients per year. Patients and infants in need of blood, stem cells or solid organs often rely on donations from unrelated donors, despite their substantial risk of graft versus host disease (GVHD) which may lead to transplant rejection. By using rare stem cells from donated blood units, this project aims to engineer cell culture models which can accurately predict whether a patient would negatively react to a specific donor's cell or organ transplant, providing insights which could save thousands of Australian lives. 

Researchers: Rose Ann Franco (Lead), Sara Chiaretti. Partners: Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Queensland Cord Blood Bank at the Mater Hospital. Funding: Australian Research Council, Ramaciotti Philanthropy, UQ Internal Funding.

Bone Marrow Mimicry Bioreactors for Blood Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Cell therapies are widely considered to be the next step-change in clinical medicine, curing previously uncurable disease. However, many cell therapies cost $100,000 to $3,000,000 per dose, an expense which patients and healthcare systems cannot afford. If we could manufacture lab-grown cell therapies as efficiently as our body does, we could reduce the cost of cell therapies 10x-100x and deliver more curative treatments to more patients in need. Specifically, we are using our body's bone marrow as an inspiration for growing blood cell therapies such as blood stem cells (HSPCs) and red blood cells (RBCs). 

Researchers: Astrid Nausa Galeano (Lead), Rose Ann Franco, Susana Costa Maia. Partners: Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Queensland University of Technology, University of Maastricht. Funding: Australian Research Council, Ramaciotti Philanthropy, UQ Internal Funding.

High-Content Microphysiological Systems for Cell Culture Screening

3D culture systems can grow greater numbers of higher-quality cells at lower costs than traditional liquid suspension or 2D cultures, however the adoption of 3D culture systems in biopharmacuetical industries remains limited due to current dependenance on culture high content screening (HCS). Our lab is engineering the first experimental platforms and compuational models to preform HCS on 3D cell cultures for process optimisation and drug screening. Specifically, we are engineering live-imaged high-throughput hydrogel microchip platforms to optimise stem cell expansion and angiogenesis. 

Researchers: Ryan McKinnon (Lead), Rose Ann Franco, Ashley Murphy. Partners: Queensland Cord Blood Bank at the Mater, Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Dept of Haematology, Queensland University of Technology. Funding: Australian Research Council, Ramaciotti Philanthropy, UQ Internal Funding.

Additive Manufacturing to Predict Patient-Specific Cardiovascular Disease

The ability to diagnose and medically or surgically treat cardiovascular disease is particularly dependent on the anatomy and biology of our body's vessels. Additive manufacturing leverages medical imaging, computational simulations, and 3D printing to fabricate patient-specific models of cardiovascular disease useful for identifying disease, predicting disease progression, or simulating treatments. Specifically, we are computationally simulating and 3D printing perfusable cell culture models to simulate intracranial aneurysm rupture risk and predict peripheral artery graft success.

Researchers: Chloe de Nys (Lead), Sabrina Schoenborn, Ryan McKinnon. Partners: Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Dept of Neurosurgery, Herston Biofabrication Institute, Princess Alexandra Hospital Dept of Vascular Surgery, Queensland University of Technology. Funding: Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship, Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Foundation, Bionics Gamechangers Australia, UQ Internal Funding.

If you are interested in collaborating with our lab in any of these focus areas or using our platform technologies toward new applications, please get in contact with Mark Allenby.

News and Past Events

October 1st, 2024: Our lab was awarded a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award (FREA)!

September 24th, 2024: Chloe was awarded a Ted White AM Career Development Scholarship!

September 10th, 2024: Mark and Chloe were awarded a Queensland-Bavaria Development Grant from the Queensland Department of the Environment, Science, and Innovation and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Science and the Arts to 3D print diagnostic cell culture models for intracranial aneurysm rupture risk prediction with Prof. Petra Mela and Killian Muller from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and with Dr. Craig Winter and Dr. Danillo Carluccio from the Herston Biofabrication Institute (HBI). 

June 12th, 2024: Chloe, Ryan, and Astrid participated in UQ's three minute thesis (3MT) competition for PhD students, with Chloe taking home second place!

May 30th, 2024: Chloe's paper "Time-of-flight MRA of intracranial aneurysms with interval surveillance, clinical segmentation and annotations" was accepted and published in Scientific Data. Representing 5 years of clinical data gathering, clinician annotation, and public health agreements in collaboration with RBWH Neurosurgeon Craig D. Winter and QUT Professor Zhiyong Li. The dataset can be found in OpenNeuro. Congrats Chloe!!

April 8th, 2024: Sabrina successfully passed her final PhD viva for her thesis "Fluid-Structure Interactions in Peripheral Arteries: Biomechanical Coupling of In-Silico, In-Vitro, and Cellular Models with Application to Patient-Specific Femoral-Popliteal Bypass Graft Anastomoses". A special thanks to PhD examiners Prof Barry Doyle, Susann Beier, and Geoff Wang. Congratulations DOCTOR Schoenborn!

April 1st, 2024: Ashley has successfully been awarded a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at TU Einhoven! An amazing culmination to Ash's incredible time at our lab from 2022-2024 where he has established our group to such a high standard of research preformance, collegiality, and safety. Congratulations Ash - we will miss you so much in Europe!

Feburary 7th, 2024: the consortium paper "Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches" was published in the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, where Mark was one (of many) experts invited to contribute.

February 6th, 2024: Nataly's paper "Whole transcriptome profiling of placental pathobiology in SARS-CoV-2 pregnancies identifies placental dysfunction signatures" was published in Clinical & Translational Immunology, as led by Arutha Kulasignhe. 

January 21st, 2024: Brenna's paper "Melt design innovations in optimizing cellular behavior on melt electrowritten (MEW) scaffolds" was published in Advanced Functional Materials, as led by Mia Woodruff and Naomi Paxton.

November 16th, 2023: Astrid successfully passed her PhD confirmation milestone for her thesis "Bioengineering a Bone Marrow Mimicry for Cell Therapy Manufacturing." She has had an incredible first year and we look forward to celebrating her future successes!

(L -> R) Mark, Rose Ann, Susana, Ilze, Ash, Sabrina, Chloe, Mateo, Astrid, Ryan.

September 19th, 2023: Ash's paper, "In vitro microvascular engineering approaches and strategies for interstitial tissue integration" has been published in Acta Biomaterialia. Congrats to Ash!

September 6th, 2023: Sabrina's paper, "Fluid-structure interactions of peripheral arteries using a coupled in silico and in vitro approach" has been published in Computers in Biology and Medicine. Congrats to Sabrina, Tomas, Kai-Chieh, David, Mia, and Selene! (collaboration with Tomas, Kai-Chieh at RWTH Aachen; David Fletcher at USyd; Selene Pirola at TU Delft; Mia Woodruff at QUT)

August 21st, 2023: Victoria's paper, "Quantitative and large-format histochemistry to characterize peripheral artery compositional gradients" has been published in Microscopy Research & Technique. Congrats to Victoria, Trent, Ed, and Mia! (collaboration with Mia Woodruff, QUT).

May 31st, 2023: Two successful confirmation seminars (Chloe, Ryan) and a successful progress review (Sabrina) capped off by a night out of dinner, drinks, and mini golf. Chloe won the coveted visor with a record score of 22. Congratulations Sabrina, Chloe, and Ryan on a wonderful year.

Celebrating Chloe, Ryan, and Sabrina's confirmation seminars and progress review.

May 30th, 2023: Brenna's preprint, "Advancing scaffold biomimicry: engineering mechanics in microfiber scaffolds with independently controlled architecture using melt electrowriting" has been uploaded to bioRxiv. Congrats to Brenna, Ted, Naomi, and Mia! (led by Mia Woodruff, QUT).

May 11th, 2023: Rena's paper, "An automated parametric ear model to improve frugal 3D scanning methods for the advanced manufacturing of high-quality prosthetic ears" has been published by Computers in Biology and Medicine. Congrats to Rena! (Led by Sean Powell, QUT).

April 18th, 2023: Sabrina's preprint, "Fluid-Structure Interactions of Peripheral Arteries Using a Coupled in silico and in vitro Approach" has been uploaded to bioRxiv. Congrats to Sabrina and all the collaborators! (Selene Priola, TU Delft; David Fletcher, UniSydney; Mia Woodruff, QUT).
 
 
April 17th, 2023: Rose Ann Franco joins us for a Postdoctoral appointment on bioengineering a vascularised marrow mimicry from peripheral and umbilical cord blood units in collaboration with the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood and Mater Hospital. Her appointment is funded by ARC and the Ramaciotti Philanthropy. Welcome Rose Ann!
Ash, Chloe, Rose Ann, Astrid, and Sabrina.
January 21st, 2023: Nataly's preprint, "Whole transcriptome profiling of placental pathobiology in SARS-CoV-2 pregnancies identifies a preeclampsia-like gene signature" has been uploaded to bioRxiv. Congrats to Nataly and all the collaborators! (Led by Arutha Kulasinghe, UQ TRI). 

December 23rd, 2022: Phani's paper, "Reproducibility of the computational fluid dynamic analysis of a cerebral aneurysm monitored over a decade" has been published in Scientific Reports. Congrats Phani! (Led by Zhiyong Li, QUT). This is a paper from our CERG consortium with Dr. Craig Winter, RBWH.

October 31st, 2022: Mark has been awarded a very spoooooky Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant entitled "Engineering high-density tissue bioreactors for the affordable manufacture of cell therapies" for 2023-2024, more details can be found here

October 19th, 2022: Sabrina Schoenborn's paper, "Fluid-Structure Interaction Within Models of Patient-Specific Arteries: Compuational Simulations and Experimental Validations" has been published in IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engieneering. Congrats Sabrina! (Collaboration with Prof Selene Pirola, TU Delft and Prof Mia Woodruff, QUT)

 

October 12th, 2022: Ashley Murphy has been awarded our school's Health Safety and Wellness Award for establishing and directing new cell culture practices in our shared biomedical engineering laboratory. Congrats Ash!

October 4th, 2022: Ashley Murphy has been awarded a EAIT ECR grant "HemaChip: Fetal liver microenvironments to enhance hematopoietic stem cell expansion" for 2023, which will support future work engineering microfluidic hydrogels to screen HSPC expansion factors. Congrats Ash!
 
September 13th, 2022: We welcomed Prof. Dieter Veit from RWTH Aachen to discuss future collaborations in textile manufacturing for biomedical engineering. 
Mark, Prof. Dieter Veit, and Sabrina
June 28th, 2022: David Forrestal's paper, "Personalised Volumetric Tissue Generation By Enhancing Multiscale Mass Transport Through 3D Printed Scaffolds in Perfused Bioreactors" has been published in Advanced Healthcare Materials. Congrats David! (Led by Prof Mia Woodruff, QUT)

June 6th, 2022: David Killian's paper, "3D Plotting of Calcium Phosphate Cement and Melt Electrowriting of Polycaprolactone Microfibers in One Scaffold" has been published in Journal of Functional Biomaterials. Congrats David! (Led by Prof Michael Gelinsky, TUD, Germany)

May 4th, 2022: Our recent review article in Biomaterials has been highlighted as a news story in GEN magazine (Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology) to describe new developments in computerised image analyses for cell and tissue bioprocess intensification and bioreactor engineering. 

April 27th, 2022: Ryan McKinnon joins us for his PhD on "Engineering vascular conduits in grafts to control mass transport for tissue regeneration" in collaboration with the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Ryan joins us after working as a molecular biologist at BD Biosciences and research assistant at Griffith University. Welcome Ryan!

April 2022: Ash, Chloe, Sabrina, Mark, and Ryan (L->R)

April 22nd, 2022: Sabrina has passed her mid-term PhD candidature review! Congrats Sabrina!

 
April 7th, 2022: Mark and Mia Woodruff's collaborative review paper 'Image analyses for engineering advanced tissue biomanufacturing processes' has been published at Biomaterials!

April 4th, 2022: Chloe De Nys joins us for her PhD on "Engineering Cerebrovascular Models for Surgical Decision Making" in collaboration with the Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital and Herston Biofabrication Institute. Chloe joins us after a degree in Chemical Engineering from UQ. Welcome Chloe!
 
April 3rd, 2022: Cody Fell's paper 'Soft pneumatic actuators for mimicking multi-axial femoropopliteal artery mechanobiology' has been published at Biofabrication!  (collaboration with Prof Mia Woodruff, QUT).

March 11th, 2022: Mark has been awarded a HaBS - EAIT ECR Collaboration Seen Funding Grant with Dr Pingping Han, Prof Saso Ivanovski, and Dr Melanie Robitaille entitled 'Modelling implant osseointegration and mechanotransduction.' Excited to develop transfected mechosensitive reporter cell lines for live imaging analyses of cell-implant integration!
 
February 14th, 2022: Dr Ashley Murphy, previously from CSIRO and Monash, has started with us as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in tissue biomanufacturing! Welcome, Ash! Personal Webpage, LinkedIn, Twitter.

January 21st, 2022: In collaboration with Assistant Professor Hon Fai Chan, Mark recieved a SPARC collaboration grant from the Chinese University of Hong Kong on 'Mechanicaly Programmable Cell Culture Platforms for Cell and Tissue Modelling.'
 
November 15th-19th, 2021: Cody, Sabrina, and Mark delivered oral presentations virtually at TERMIS-WC. BMSE Lab members were honored to recieve 4 oral presentations out of 4 abstract submissions! A perfect record!
  • Cody in When biofabrication meets bioreactors: implementing construct maturation and functional tissue culture 
  • Sabrina in Biomechanics of 3D (Bio)printed Materials
  • Mark in Frontiers of Bioprocessing and Automation in Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine (keynote) and Advanced Spatiotemporal Imaging for Regenerative Medicine (chair)

October 26th, 2021: Mark delivered a pre-recorded talk at the Effective Altruism UQ event Alternative Meats at 6pm.

October 22nd, 2021: Mark delivered an invited talk at the Queensland Cardiovascular Research Network (QCVRN) at 4:15pm.

September 29th, 2021: Mark's paper 'A spatiotemporal microenvironment model to improve design of a three-dimensional bioreactor for red cell production' has been published in Tissue Engineering Part A  (led by Prof Sakis Mantalaris, Georgia Tech).

September 28th, 2021: Sabrina and Trent presented their PhD projects at the International Society of Biofabrication Conference! Sabrina presented 'Numerical and Experimental Platform for the Characterisation of Patient Specific Small-Diameter Vascular Graft Anastomoses for Translation to Tissue Engineering' and Trent presented 'Towards Patient-Specific Vascular Stents: Additive Manufacturing of Poly(ɛ-Caprolactone) Mechanically Enhanced with Graphene Oxide'.

September 24th, 2021: Matt's paper developing 'A quantitative analysis of cell bridging kinetics on a scaffold using computer vision algorithms' has been published in Acta Biomaterialia (led by Prof Mia Woodruff, QUT).

September 5th, 2021: Habib's paper reviewing 'The effects of COVID-19 on the placenta during pregnancy' has been published in Frontiers in Immunology (led by Dr Arutha Kulasinghe, UQ).

August 18th, 2021: Mark was awarded a DECRA entitled 'Engineering tissue organisation using intelligent additive biomanufacturing' which will run from March 2022 through 2025. 

August 5th, 2021: Mark welcomed his first child into the world, Giulia Letizia Allenby! Bring on the sleepless nights!

August 3rd, 2021: Alex's paper on 'Model-based data analysis of tissue growth in thin 3D printed scaffolds' has been published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology (led by Prof Matthew Simpson, QUT).

July 20th, 2021: Maureen's paper using 'Using melt-electrowritten microfibres for tailoring scaffold mechanics of 3D bioprinted chondrocyte-laden constructs' has been published in Bioprinting (led by Prof Mia Woodruff, QUT)

July 10th, 2021: Jared's paper on 'A deep learning method for automatic segmentation of the bony orbit in MRI and CT images' has been published in Scientific Reports (led by Dr. David Alonso-Caneiro, QUT)

July 5th, 2021: The BMSE Lab started at UQ!