AIBN Seminar Series: A novel 3D printing approach for structured microenvironments and defined cell behaviour

We are pleased to host Professor Hala Zreiqat AM, Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney as part of the very first seminar for the 2021 AIBN Seminar Series. Please take this opportunity and join us either in person or via zoom.

Date: Tuesday, 19 January 2021

Time: 11am - 12noon

Venue: Hybrid Seminar - Online and AIBN Level 1 Seminar Room (L1 seminar room has a maximum capacity of 30 people to be in line with the COVID-safe practices).

The seminar is free, but registration is essential. To register please click here.

Key Speaker: Professor Hala Zreiqat AM, Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney

Hala Zreiqat AM, is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Sydney and both a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow (2006-2020); Director ARC Training Centre for Innovative Bio-Engineering. She is an Associate of the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Honorary Professor Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research is on the development of novel engineered materials and 3D-printed and nanotechnology platforms, in orthopaedic, dental, and maxillofacial applications. Her group is also developing effective biological approaches through biochemical and cellular modification for the repair and regenerating of large bone defects and non-union bone fractures. 

Her extraordinary contribution to regenerative medicine and orthopaedic research and her unwavering commitment to improving opportunities for women around the world led to her receiving a number of national and international awards, including the Order of Australia (2019); the 2018 New South Wales Premier’s Woman of the Year; The King Abdullah II Order of Distinction of the Second Class (2018); 2016-2017 Radcliffe Fellow, Harvard University, Eureka Prize winner for Innovative Use of Technology (2019); Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2019); Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology & Engineering (2020); Fellow of International Orthopaedic Research (FIOR); and University of Sydney Payne-Scott Professorial Distinction (2019).

She has established national and international industry collaborations to translate her discoveries into approved medical devices. Her pioneering development of innovative biomaterials for tissue regeneration has led to four awarded and four provisional patents, and several collaborations with inter/national industry partners.  She has been awarded more than $18M in competitive funding including from the NHMRC, ARC and the NSW Medical Devices Fund. She is the past president of the Australian & New Zealand Orthopaedic Research Society; founder of IDEAL Society (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action Leadership) Harvard University (2017-); founder and Chair of the Alliance for Design and Application in Tissue Engineering (ADATE) (2006-present); Founder of the BIOTech Futures Challenge; member of the National Health and Medical Research Senior Research grant review panel, the Australian Research Council Expert College and German Research Foundation. 

Prof. Zreiqat’s overall objective is to advance collaborative research ventures, build educational, and industry linkages nationally and internationally in the field of musculoskeletal disorders and biomaterials research.

Abstract

Tissue is a complex heterogeneous structure. The fabrication of comparable structured synthetic tissues necessitates technologies able to recapitulate such heterogeneity. Towards this aim, we develop a novel 3D printing technology, flow lithography, for the fabrication of structured cellular microenvironments. Using this technique, we characterize the dependency of the independent parameters affecting the material properties and describe a strategy for fabricating substrates with independently defined biophysicochemical microproperties. We use flow lithography to fabricate cell microenvironments able to spatially define cell mechanosensing and to direct stem cell differentiation.

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