100-word biography: | Dr. Ruirui Qiao is a Group leader and NHMRC Emerging Leadership fellow at Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. She received her BSc (2005) and MSc (2007) in pharmaceutical science in Peking University in China. From 2007 to 2016, she worked as a research assistant and associate in Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). In 2016, she was promoted to be an associated Professor in Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2017, she joined Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) as a research fellow within ARC Centre of Bio-Nano Science (CBNS) under the leadership and mentorship of Professor Tom Davis. In 2019, she relocated to AIBN as the co-project leader of CBNS. In 2021, she received the prestigious UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award. Her research focuses on the development of polymeric/inorganic nanohybrids and assemblies for disease diagnosis and therapy. |
Abstract: | Hybrid nanomaterials, with an inorganic core and organic surface coating, has shown great potential in a number of fields such as health, environment, microfluidics, as well as imaging and targeting delivery. Instead of utilising solely functions from either metal-based inorganic materials (e.g. Iron oxides, upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), Au nanoparticles, quantum dots, liquid metal nanoparticles (LMNPs), etc.) or organic polymers with unique properties (e.g. biocompatibility, chemical or biochemical reactivity, optical or electrical characteristics), hybrid functional materials involve a synergic combination of two chemical worlds to generate new materials with improved performance or even novel properties. In bioapplications such as imaging or targeting delivery, the advantages of hybrid nanoparticle-based imaging agents include tailorable size and surface, high loading capacity, controllable or environmental responsive signal activation, reduced side effect and improved biocompatibility. The seminar will cover the design and fabrication of different types of functional polymeric/inorganic nanohybrids as imaging probes for diagnosis of diseases. |
