Dr Craig Bell
Craig specialises in the development of degradable polymer devices for imaging, cellular tracking, and therapeutic applications
As modern medicine increasingly demands for non-invasive methods to diagnose and track disease, the use of fluorescence imaging as a highly sensitive imaging technique has meant that this technology can been used extensively for in vitro and small animal in vivo studies. Dr Bell’s research focus is on the development of degradable polymer devices for imaging and tracking of disease and cellular processes by using a tool-kit of controlled polymerisation techniques along with polymer and molecular coupling methodologies. The incorporation of degradable moieties into these constructs not only allows for enzymatic and hydrolytic degradation for complete body clearance of these constructs but also allows for tracking of these devices in vivo upon degradation to help elucidate cellular processes.
After the award of his PhD and the Univesity of Queensland in 2011, Dr Bell was successfully awarded 2 research fellowships that enabled him to travel to the University of Warwick in the UK to conduct novel research in degradable polymer systems. 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). Dr Bell has been the recipient of four competitive national and international fellowships, the latest being an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship. 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 ARC Discovery and Linkage Grants.
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 working collaboratively with them on the production of Hyperimmune Sera as a part of a successful Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship.
Funding
Since the award of PhD, in the last ten (10) years 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.