Professor Matt Trau

Nanoscience, Nanotechnology, Molecular diagnostics. 

In the last five years, Professor Trau has initiated and led several large international programs that involve close collaboration between leading nanotechnologists, molecular biologists, geneticists and commercial researchers - with the goal of creating cutting-edge diagnostics.

Professor Matt Trau is currently a Professor of Chemistry at The University of Queensland. Since graduating from the University of Sydney (BSc Hons I, University Medal) and the University of Melbourne (PhD in Physical Chemistry, 1993), he has held positions in industry and academia across the globe. These include a Fulbright Research Fellowship at Princeton University, USA; and a research scientist at Dow Chemical and ICI Pty Ltd. Professor Trau has been a Visiting Professor at two of the largest Cancer Research Centres in the world: The Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston (2000); and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle (2008). Professor Trau is internationally recognised for his innovative and cross-disciplinary research at the interface between chemistry, nanotechnology, biology and medicine. He has co-authored more than 170 refereed publications, many of which appear in the highest impact journals in his field, e.g., two Nature and two Science publications. His major awards and honours include an ARC Federation Fellowship (one of the most prestigious scientific fellowships in Australia), a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the USA; a Queensland Young Tall Poppy Award; a UQ Foundation/Vice Chancellor's Research Excellence Award; a Paul Harris Fellowship; and a Pink Circle Award for breast cancer research excellence.

Since 2003, Professor Trau has presented more than 100 invited plenary/keynote lectures at major international conferences spanning the disciplines of Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Chemical Engineering, Cancer and Diagnostics. Recent examples include: The 46^th World Chemistry Congress (IUPAC 2017), San Paolo, Brazil, July 2017; the 8^th Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology Conference (ANM8), Queenstown, Feb 2017; the 6^th International NanoBio Conference, (Nanjing) 2016; the 4^th Asia Pacific Breast Cancer Summit (Brisbane) 2015; Monash University Platinum Seminar (Melbourne), Oct 2014; American Association of Clinical Chemistry Annual Conference (San Jose) April 2014; the 4th International NanoBio Conference, (Seattle) 2012; the 14th International Colloid & Surface Science Conference, (Japan) 2012. In the past ten years, Professor Trau has played the role of conference convenor, chair, co-chair and symposium chair for 10 major international conferences. Recent examples include: immediate past chair of the 1st International Conference on BioNano Innovation, (Brisbane) 2012; co-chair of the 5th International NanoBio Conference, (Brisbane) July 2014; co-chair of the 6^th International NanoBio Conference, (Nanjing) October 2016.

Professor Trau is also the director of the Centre for Personalised Nanomedicine and a senior group leader, managing the Trau Group at the AIBN.

Industry Engagement & Collaborations

Professor Matt Trau has been involved in research collaborations with some of the highest calibre scientists in the world, e.g., Dr Lee Hartwell (2001 Nobel Laureate) from Seattle was a co-chief investigator on the NIRAP grant, and each of the NBCF grants include leading geneticists, pathologists and oncologists from across Australia and around the world. In the past five years, he has been a consultant for a range of national and international companies such as Merck, Digene, Beckman Coulter, Panbio and A.I. Scientific, as well as being the founder and Director of Nanomics BioSystems Pty Ltd (a spinoff company from his laboratory).

Funding

Professor Trau has raised more than $22 million in competitive national and international grant funding in the past 10 years. These include a $4 million National and International Research Alliances Program (NIRAP) grant from the Queensland government ("International Partnership for preventative and Personalised Medicine)"; and two consecutive $5 million multidisciplinary collaborative grants from the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF): "Novel strategies for Prediction and Control of Advanced Breast Cancer via Nanoscaled Epigenetic-Based Biosensors", 2008-2013; and "Enabling Clinical Epigenetic Diagnostics: The Next Generation of Personalized Breast Cancer Care", 2013-2018.

Key Publications

Koo, K. M., Wee, E. J. H., Mainwaring, P. N., Wang, Y., and Trau, M. Toward Precision Medicine: A Cancer Molecular Subtyping Nano-Strategy for RNA Biomarkers in Tumor and Urine. Small, 2016. 12 45: 6233-6242 (cover article). 

Dey, S., Vaidyanathan, R., Carrascosa, L. G., Shiddiky, M. J. A., and  Trau, M. Electric Field Induced Isolation, Release, and Recapture of Tumor Cells. ACS Sensors, 2016. 1 4: 399-405. (cover article) 

Wee, E. J. H., Lau, H. Y., Botella, J. R, Trau, M. Re-purposing Bridging Flocculation for Onsite, Rapid, Qualitative DNA Detection in Resource-poor Settings. Chemical Communications, 2015. 51, 5828-5831. (cover article). 

Stirzaker, C., Zotenko, E., Song, J., Qu, W., Nair, S., Locke, W., Stone, A., Armstong, N.,  Robinson, M., Dobrovic, A., Avery-Kiejda, K., Peters, K., French, J., Stein, S., Korbie, D., Trau, M.,  Forbes, J., Scott, R., Brown, M., Francis, G., Clark, S.  Methylome sequencing in triple negative breast cancer reveals distinct methylation clusters with prognostic value. Nature Communications, 2015. 6, 5899.

Stone, A., Zotenko, E., Locke, W., Korbie, D., Millar, E., Pidsley, R., Stirzaker, C., Graham, P., Trau, M., Musgrove, E., Nicholson, R., Gee' J., and Clark, S.  DNA Methylation of Oestrogen-Regulated Enhancers Defines Endocrine Sensitivity in Breast Cancer. Nature Communications, 2015. 6: 7758. 

Full list of publications available on Google Scholar