Associate Professor Khoon Lim is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and the Director of the Light Activated Biomaterials research group at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has generated 86 high impact journal publications (Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials), and raised a total of >$7.8 Million research grant funding with $5.4 Million as lead Chief-Investigator. He is currently the President of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, Board of Directors of the International Society for Biofabrication, and Executive Board Member of the Medical Technologies Translator Programme (New Zealand). He has won >20 competitive national/international awards and included in the World’s Top 2% Scientist List by Stanford University for 2022 and 2023. His research has also led to commercialisation of biomaterials licensed to a US-based company and commercial contracts with industry partners. He currently sits on the editorial board of Biomaterials Science, Tissue Engineering, Biofabrication, International Journal of Bioprinting, Macromolecular Bioscience, Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express and Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine.

Read Khoon’s Emerging Investigator article Pristine gelatin incorporation as a strategy to enhance the biofunctionality of poly(vinyl alcohol)-based hydrogels for tissue engineering applications, DOI D3BM01172K.

Check our our interview with Khoon below:

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

Great journal with an awesome reach and publicity, perfect fit for my research.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I’m really excited in developing in vitro models that can replace animal models for our field. The challenging aspect is of course trying to proof that the in vitro models are as good or better than the animal models, but there is a huge potential in this space.

I’m also super excited to see the realization of lab-grown organs, eventually translated into patients!  

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Laboratory-grown organs – are we there yet?

How do we ensure equitable access to lab-grown organ.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Don’t be afraid to share and collaborate, my greatest joy comes from working with brilliant scientists worldwide, especially when we join forces to explore specific research questions.  

Donny Hanjaya-Putra is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering Graduate Program, as well as Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Bachelor degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 2007. He completed his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University under the mentorship of Dr. Sharon Gerecht. His postdoctoral research training was conducted with Dr. Elliot L. Chaikof at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the study of thrombosis and hemostasis, stem cell engineering, vascular and lymphatic morphogenesis, as well as synthesis of bio-inspired materials and tissue-engineered constructs. His lab is interested to understand what governs the formation of blood and lymphatic vessels from stem cells and how these insights can be used to develop novel therapies. He has received numerous awards, including NIH Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (MIRA) R35, NSF CAREER Award, Career Development Award from American Heart Association, CMBE Young Innovator Award, and Siebel Scholar Award. Research projects in his lab are currently being supported by both federal and private funding agencies, including Indiana CTSI, NSF, NIH, Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute / BioFab USA, and American Heart Association.

Read Donny’s open access Emerging Investigator article Synthetic hyaluronic acid coating preserves the phenotypes of lymphatic endothelial cells, DOI D3BM00873H.

Check out our interview with Donny below:

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

The Biomaterials Science is an internationally recognized journal to publish transformative research at the interface between biomaterials and medicine. It is an honor to publish our latest research in this high-impact journal and engage with the biomaterial community at international level. 

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

We are very excited about leveraging advances in biomaterials design and fabrication to unlock the therapeutic potential of stem cells for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering applications. One application that is particularly challenging is how to regenerate the lymphatic vasculatures. However, we are very excited and inspired by our talented and dedicated researchers who try to solve these problems using innovative approaches. A great example of it would be our most recent publication in Biomaterials Science, where our multidisciplinary research team came up with a synthetic coating method to culture lymphatic endothelial cells and preserve their phenotypes. Thus, we hope that this innovative solution can be broadly used to advance the fields of lymphatic biology and tissue engineering.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Since the field of lymphatic biology is still relatively young, there are many unanswered questions surrounding the roles of lymphatic vasculatures in body hemostasis maintenance and the progression of various diseases. By leveraging stem cells and biomaterials design, we hope to be able to enhance our basic understanding of lymphatic vasculature as well as develop innovative therapeutics for a wide range of diseases that may involve lymphatic regeneration.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

As an early career scientist, it is important to be creative and persistent. Build a network of mentors and people with diverse background who are willing to support you. 

Keep up to date with all of Donny’s research by checking out his lab’s website or by following @DHPGroup, @NDBioeng and @NBEngineering on X.

Dr. Brisbois is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemical, Materials, & Biomedical Engineering at the University of Georgia.  She completed a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical School in the Department of Surgery, where she worked in the Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) laboratory under the direction of Dr. Robert H. Bartlett (Emeritus Surgeon).  She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Michigan in 2014 under the supervision of Dr. Mark E. Meyerhoff.  She obtained a B.S. degree in Chemistry and a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education at Concordia University Nebraska in 2008.  Prior to her graduate studies, she also gained R&D experience by working as an analyst at Novartis Consumer Health to develop/improve QC testing methods for current and new products. Currently, Dr. Brisbois’ research focus is in the field of polymeric biomaterials and the development of therapeutic biomolecules aimed at addressing challenges related to medical devices, diseases, and patient care.  Her translational research aims to design novel multifunctional polymers and small molecule therapeutics, characterize for their properties in vitro, and evaluate their potential biomedical applications in clinically relevant animal models.  Her research has been supported through competitive grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH R01s), Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), Center for Disease Control (CDC) SBIR, and the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance.  Her work has been well received by peer-reviewed journals, resulting in > 55 publications and > 15 patents and patent disclosures.  Throughout her academic career, she has been awarded several honours including the ACS Materials Au 2022 Rising Star Award, the American Chemical Society Young Investigator Award (PMSE division), the Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award (SC&M SIG), a VPR Advancement of Early Career Researchers Award, NIH F32 Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship, a career development award from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, 2016 Baxter Inc. Young Investigator Award, and the University of Michigan Department of Chemistry Research Excellence Fellowship.

Read Elizabeth’s Emerging Investigator article Antimicrobial efficacy of a nitric oxide-releasing ampicillin conjugate catheter lock solution on clinically-isolated antibiotic-resistant bacteria, DOI D3BM00775H.

Check out our interview with Dr Brisbois below:

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

The Biomaterials Science journal is a premiere venue to publish the latest research investigations in designing novel biomaterials and studying their wide-ranging applications.  It is an honor to publish here and keep the community updated with our latest work!

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Advanced biomaterials are sorely needed to promote biocompatible interfaces and to address a wide range of challenges associated with medical device applications in order to resist infection, prevent thrombosis, mitigate host responses, provide functional mechanical support, and support cellular attachment and proliferation.  Achieving these attributes simultaneously requires materials that possess multiple functional mechanisms via precise control of the material design and therapeutic action.  While we make technical advances in the biomaterials we are developing, our ultimate goal is to translate those materials/technologies to healthcare and medical devices.  Developing new biomaterial technologies that solve these critical problems while also being commercially and clinically viable remains a challenge.  However, if we are successful, these new materials we are studying will be applied to a wide range of medical devices that are critical to patient care, everything from small catheters and cannulas to large extracorporeal life support devices (e.g., ECMO, hemodialysis).  Collaborating with a multidisciplinary team with expertise in basic science, engineering, clinical applications, and industry facilitates pushing these new material solutions from the benchtop to the bedside.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

The best piece of advice that I can give young researchers as they begin their scientific careers is to always find strong mentors at each stage of their training and career.  As a student, mentors can be graduate students or postdocs who you look up to, as well as those who are more established in their career.  Mentors should be people that you can learn from and emulate, reach out to for advice, and are successful in their field.  Work to establish a network of mentors and always continue building your network of mentors throughout your career, both at your institution and externally.  Having this support network is critical in helping you continue to grow professionally and reach your career goals.  Meet with your mentors regularly.  Reach out to them for advice and guidance.  Keep them updated with your successes, no matter how big or small.

Keep up to date with all of Elizabeth’s work by checking out the Brisbois Lab website.

Dr. Gallego-Perez is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and General Surgery at The Ohio State University (OSU). He was also recently appointed as the Edgar C. Hendrickson Chair in Biomedical Engineering, the Director of the Advanced Nanotherapeutics Center within the Gene Therapy Institute at OSU (2023), and a Faculty Fellow within the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK) at OSU. His lab’s research is aimed at developing nanotechnology-driven platforms (e.g., devices, methods, approaches, systems) for both fundamental and translational biomedical research. A major portion of his research has been devoted to using nanotechnology to induce controlled lineage conversions, in vivo, as a potential therapeutic approach for different conditions. Such efforts were highlighted in 2019 in the NIH Director’s Blog. Dr. Gallego-Perez is currently supervising a number of projects in which this approach is being tested within the context of diabetes, peripheral nerve injury, chronic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and cancer. In addition to high impact publications, this line of research has yielded multiple intellectual property filings and awarded patents, several of which have already been licensed to industry. Dr. Gallego-Perez is the lead inventor of the Tissue Nano-Transfection (TNT) technology, for which he was awarded the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award to work on developing TNT-driven therapies for ischemic stroke and peripheral nerve injury. Dr. Gallego-Perez was also awarded pilot funding through NIDDK’s Catalyst Award program to work on developing TNT-driven therapies for diabetes and metabolic disorders. In addition to these recognitions, he was also awarded the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award from both his undergraduate alma mater and OSU’s College of Engineering, and multiple other research and teaching distinctions from OSU, including the Institute for Materials Research Innovation Award, the Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Award, and the Lumley Research Award, and the Harrison Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education.

Read Daniel’s Emerging Investigator article, ICAM-1-decorated extracellular vesicles loaded with miR-146a and Glut1 drive immunomodulation and hinder tumor progression in a murine model of breast cancer, DOI D3BM00573A.

Check out our interview with Daniel below:

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

We are very excited about the possibility of using our Tissue Nano-Transfection (TNT) technology to partially engineer the secretome of tissues, in vivo, to drive therapies in diseased tissues, either locally or remotely. In the work we published in this issue we showed that TNT can engineer patches of skin tissue to produce ‘designer’ extracellular vesicles that could mitigate tumor progression, locally, in a mouse model of breast cancer. However, the therapeutic potential of the engineered secretome could also be leveraged to drive more systemic responses. For example, in a recent study we showed that TNT can also engineer patches of skin tissue to drive improved endocrine and metabolic function in murine models of diabetes. Long-term, we hope to be able to leverage this approach to target therapies to many different organs and tissues via the skin. The challenge here will be to develop strategies to control and precisely target these therapies to diseased tissue, minimizing the potential for side effects. This is currently a very active area of research in my lab.    

Keep up with all of Daniel’s research by checking out his lab’s web page or following him on twitter @dgpnanomedlab.

Dr. Nuria Oliva is a ‘la Caixa’ Foundation Junior Leader Fellow and Assistant Professor at IQS Barcelona (Universitat Ramon Llull), and holds a part time Senior Lecturer Position in the department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London. Her research group works at the intersection of biomaterials, biology and medicine to understand how biomaterials can be used to tackle complex human diseases, like osteoarthritis and cancer. Originally an organic chemist, she completed her PhD in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. After a short postdoctoral stay at Harvard Medical School, Nuria joined Imperial College London as a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow first, and then started her independent research group as an Imperial College Research Fellow in 2020. Nuria has received multiple prizes and recognitions, amongst them the 2019 ETRS Young Investigator Award and the highly commended distinction of the 2020 AVIVA Women of the Future Award in the science category.

Read Nuria’s open access Emerging Investigator article, A machine learning approach to predict cellular uptake of pBAE polyplexes, DOI D3BM00741C.

Check out our interview with Nuria below: 

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I’m very excited about understanding how biomaterials interact with cells and tissues at a biological level, and how biomaterials’ properties can be leveraged to modulate gene expression. In that sense, tools like machine learning will be instrumental to process large data sets and unravel non-linear correlations that have not yet been identified. In the future, these concepts could become the basis of drugless therapies based solely on biomaterials and their power to restore gene expression of disease cells and tissues to that of healthy ones.

The most challenging part of the research is the multidisciplinary approach that it requires: biomaterials science and engineering, biology, data science and medicine. As such, a collaborative spirit is key to success.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Well, I’m still learning how to be an early career scientist! But what I’ve learned so far is that it is very important to be resilient and kind – to others, but also to yourself. The academic path has more rejection than success, and at the end of the day it is key to believe in yourself and in your science.

Keep with all of Nuria’s research by checking out her lab’s web page or following her on LinkedIn or twitter @noliva77. 

Professor Yan Pang received her PhD degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2011. She worked as a Postdoctoral Associate from 2014 to 2015 at Duke university, and from 2016 to 2018 at MIT. She joined the School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2019. Her research interests focus on the design and construction of functional biomaterials and their applications in treating various diseases, especially ocular related diseases.

Read Yan’s Emerging Investigator article, Nano-based ocular drug delivery systems: an insight into the preclinical/clinical studies and their potential in the treatment of posterior ocular diseases, DOI: D3BM00505D.

Check out our interview with Yan below:

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

Biomaterials Science is an ideal journal to publish works related to biomaterials and their potential applications as well as future translations.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Our most exciting aspect lies in constructing smart drug delivery systems for the treatment of ocular diseases based on biomaterials. As human eyes have many anatomical barriers to prevent therapeutic agents from reaching their targets, how to penetrate the ocular barriers and reach the lesion site is the most challenging thing.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

There are still many unknowns in this area and many questions that need to be answered, especially that how can we carry on research “from bedside to bench side, and then from bench side back to the bedside”, and to make the most use of biomaterials in the preclinical/clinical stage.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I think it is very important to communicate and learn from the scientists in the same field or related fields to expand new knowledge and skills. And never give up when you encounter some difficulty.

Dr Giselle Yeo is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Group Leader at the Charles Perkins Centre, School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. She completed her PhD in matrix protein biochemistry at the University of Sydney, then continued on with postdoctoral studies in the biofunctionalisation of materials for tissue engineering applications. In 2018, Dr Yeo established an independent lab focused on understanding the extracellular matrix-associated processes regulating stem cell biology, and developing functional stem cell-instructive materials for regenerative medicine

Read Giselle’s Emerging Investigator article, Cellular modifications and biomaterial design to improve mesenchymal stem cell transplantation, DOI: D3BM00376K.

Check out our interview with Giselle below:

How do you feel about Biomaterials Science as a place to publish research on this topic?

The process has been extremely smooth, well-supported, and fair – from submission, to peer review, to revision and publication. I highly recommend Biomaterials Science as a place to publish high quality biomaterials work. 

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

There are lots to be excited about! I am excited about the rapidly emerging and ever-expanding new applications that leverage the regenerative potential of stem cells. There are opportunities for impactful discovery at every turn. I am always excited and inspired by the talented, driven and dedicated group of students and researchers in this field. In terms of challenges, securing funding to adequately support people and projects has always been a major endeavour, so I welcome the current initiatives to better support early-career researchers from diverse backgrounds. 

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

I work in the area of stem cell biotechnology. I think there are still so many unanswered questions about the interplay of biological processes regulating stem cell fate and function, which need to be understood better in order to develop more robust technologies for stem cell production and therapeutic application.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Develop your community. Research can be full of highs and lows, and having supportive mentors and peers, who will celebrate your successes with you and lift you up during challenging times, makes a world of difference. 

Follow Giselle on LinkedIn or twitter @GiselleYeo to keep up with her latest research.