Dr Craig Bell
Craig specialises in the development of polymer devices for imaging, therapeutic and separations applications
Dr Bell’s research focus is on the development of polymer devices for imaging, tracking of disease and cellular processes, therapeutic and separation applications through the use of a tool-kit of controlled polymerisation techniques along with polymer and molecular coupling methodologies. The incorporation of degradable moieties into these constructs also allows for enzymatic and hydrolytic degradation for complete body clearance of these constructs and tracking of these devices in vivo upon degradation to help elucidate cellular processes.
In his career to date, Dr Bell has been awarded 4 prestigious national and international fellowships, the latest being an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship. He has travel overseas to the University of Warwick in the UK on the back of a Newton International Fellowship and an NHMRC CJ Martin Overseas Fellowship to conduct novel research in degradable polymer systems with world leading polymer chemists. Upon returning to Australia in 2017, Dr Bell has been conducting research under the mentorship of Prof Kristofer Thurecht at AIBN and at the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI). He has contributed scientific and review articles to various leading journals in his field, is co-inventor on two patents, and is currently chief investigator on an ARC Discovery Grant.
Industry
Dr Bell has worked collaboratively with a variety of industry partners across various sectors in biotechnology including collaboration with established industry partner Inter-K as part of an ARC Linkage project, and as co-CI on an ARC Linkage project with international membrane manufacturing company, Aegros. This project facilitate three years of collaborative research for advanced membrane manufacturing. Coupled to this collaboration, Dr Bell also worked collaboratively with them on the production of Hyperimmune Sera as a part of a successful Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship, and is now leading the research laboratory at AIBN under an Industry Fellowship for Aegros as part of a collaborative research agreement.
Collaborations
Apart from the aforementioned collaborations with industry partners Inter-K Peptide Therapeutics and Aegros Ltd, Dr Bell also collaborates with another industry partner Erth Nails on a collaborative research project. As well as industry collaborations, Dr Bell also collaborates academically, with research projects through co-supervision of students with Dr Kristian Kempe at Monash University, and A/Prof Jeffrey Harmer at AIBN.
Funding
Since the award of his PhD, Dr Bell has been successful in obtaining approx. $2.5M (AUD) in competitively awarded funding for research activities. This includes the award of the highly competitive Newton International Fellowship (one of only 41 awarded worldwide), an NHMRC CJ Martin Overseas Biomedical Fellowship, and two ARC research support grants from the Discovery and Linkage portfolios.
Key Publications
Wandel, M. B.; Bell, C. A.; Yu, J.; Arno, M. C.; Dreger, N. Z.; Hsu, Y.-H.; Pitto-Barry, A.; Worch, J. C.; Dove, A. P.; Becker, M. L., Concomitant control of mechanical properties and degradation in resorbable elastomer-like materials using stereochemistry and stoichiometry for soft tissue engineering. Nature Communications 2021, 12 (1), 446.
Sivaram, A. J.; Wardiana, A.; Alcantara, S.; Sonderegger, S. E.; Fletcher, N. L.; Houston, Z. H.; Howard, C. B.; Mahler, S. M.; Alexander, C.; Kent, S. J.; Bell, C. A.; Thurecht, K. J., Controlling the Biological Fate of Micellar Nanoparticles: Balancing Stealth and Targeting. ACS Nano 2020, 14 (10), 13739-13753.
Ediriweera, G. R.; Simpson, J. D.; Fuchs, A. V.; Venkatachalam, T. K.; Van De Walle, M.; Howard, C. B.; Mahler, S. M.; Blinco, J. P.; Fletcher, N. L.; Houston, Z. H. Bell, C. A.; Thurecht, K. J., Targeted and modular architectural polymers employing bioorthogonal chemistry for quantitative therapeutic delivery. Chemical Science 2020, 11 (12), 3268-3280.
Akhter, D. T.; Simpson, J. D.; Fletcher, N. L.; Houston, Z. H.; Fuchs, A. V.; Bell, C. A.; Thurecht, K. J., Oral Delivery of Multicompartment Nanomedicines for Colorectal Cancer Therapeutics: Combining Loco‐Regional Delivery with Cell‐Target Specificity. Advanced Therapeutics 2019, 3 (2), 1900171.
Bell, C. A.; Yu, J.; Barker, I. A.; Truong, V. X.; Cao, Z.; Dobrinyin, A. V.; Becker, M. L.; Dove, A. P., Independent control of elastomer properties through stereocontrolled synthesis. Angewandte Chemie 2016, 128 (42), 13270-13274.