News

Striking new images showcase AIBN's state-of-the-art micro-CT scanner which can zoom into the micron level offering huge scope for both research and industry applications.

After 10 years at the helm of AIBN, director Professor Alan Rowan is preparing for his next chapter, stepping into the role of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation) at the University of Wollongong.

As 2025 draws to a close, we reflect on our successes at AIBN. This year, we have reaffirmed our position as a powerhouse for translation and innovation and secured more than $65 million in funding. With our world-class researchers and facilities, we’re working together with industry, translating our scientific breakthroughs to solve the society’s challenges.

Two AIBN Early Career Researchers have secured awards from the 2025 UQ Early Career Researcher Development: Knowledge Exchange & Translation Fund (UQ Kx&T) building relationships with industry partners HA Tech and Graphinex to solve health and sustainability problems – tackling a public health crisis and processing Australian graphite enabling its use in lithium batteries.

AIBN Researchers have received a combined $3,948,681 in funding from the latest round of ARC Discovery and Linkage Project grants, supporting research that drives better science, better solutions, and a better future.

AIBN researchers have achieved what many consider the holy grail of quantum research – achieving superconductivity in semiconductors, a breakthrough that has puzzled physicists for more than 60 years.

Popcorn, microwaves and cancer research helped AIBN PhD scholar Firasti Sumadi win over the crowd at UQ’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Final.

Imagine scanning an orange with your phone and knowing instantly how fresh it is. Or dipping a strip into your morning juice to check if it’s still packed with Vitamin C. It’s the kind of everyday science that could change how we shop, store and eat fresh food.

A team at AIBN has developed a world-first assay that rapidly measures interactions between tiny particles in the bloodstream - a crucial step in understanding how diseases like cancer develop and spread.

New research from the AIBN has revealed that neurons in the brain use fats for energy, challenging decades of scientific thinking and opening the door to new treatments for neurological disease.

A cutting-edge project at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) has received funding through the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Project (CRC-P) scheme, announced in round 17. 

An AIBN developed magnetic resin will be trialled at wastewater treatment plants to remove harmful PFAS - aka ‘forever chemicals’ - so sewerage can be safely reused as fertiliser.

The distance between a researcher at the lab bench and a patient in a hospital chair is vast, with one immersed in test tubes and protocols, and the other navigating uncertainty, hope, and side effects.

A new battery material developed at UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) could help bring sodium metal batteries (SMBs) closer to commercial use - and closer to powering a renewable future.

Sponge-like gold particles could be used to triage women with suspected ovarian cancer more accurately than current diagnostic tools, addressing one of the leading causes of cancer death in women, which claims more than 1,000 lives in Australia each year.

Imagine trying to design a drug-delivery gel that safely carries medicine through the body and breaks down after it’s done its job — all without ever setting foot in a lab.

A new clinical trial gets the green light as researchers from UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) investigate whether a common heart medication could help treat people living with the form of motor neurone disease known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

UQ’s Biosustainability Hub (the Hub) has won the 2025 AFR Higher Education Award for Industry Engagement, with Hub Director and AIBN Group Leader Professor Esteban Marcellin accepting the honour.

To explore the nanoscale is to peer into another world, a place where the rules of science bend and the unseen comes alive.

Growing up, Dr Laura Leighton was always the curious kid. The pre-schooler who raised tadpoles in a backyard pool and asked big questions about how life worked. That early curiosity never left.