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CONGRATULATIONS to Jack Jasieniak, PhD graduate from 2009, on winning the Chancellor's Prize for his thesis! Jack's thesis is titled "Synthesis and Application of II-VI Quantum Dots". Jack is now working as a Research Scientist at CSIRO. This is the second year in a row that a PhD student from the Nanoscience Lab has won the pristigious Chancellor's Prize for their thesis.
The Nanoscience Lab is pleased to welcome Dr Matthias Karg as a Post Doc. Matthias joins us from Berlin, Germany, and is working on synthesis and characterisation of hybrids in the meso- and nano-scale, organic/inorganic hybrids with magnetic, optical and/or catalytic properties, hybrids for SERS detection and 2D- and 3D-arrangement of core-shell hybrid particles.
Welcome to our students for 2009! Joining us for Honours this year are Gary Beane and Joe Varga, and our Masters Students are Anneke Ryan and Chris Haines. New PhD students who have just begun their candidature are Steven Barrow, Emma Hooley and international student, Julia Baldauf, who joins us from Germany.
We also welcome Dr Anthony Morfa, who is a Post Doc joining us from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in the USA. Anthony has a background in organic solar cells and devices and will be working with existing students, Brandon MacDonald and Ben Mashford, in this field.
Ben Mashford makes breakthrough in Quantum Dot LED fabrication
Ben Mashford has designed a novel approach to LEDs that opens up the possibility for wet-chemical fabrication of tunable LEDs. The technology has been built around the ultra-photo-stable QDs developed at the Nanoscience Laboratory and uses sol-gel processing. A provisional patent was granted in February to the University of Melbourne.
It is expected that a postdoctoral position and PhD scholarship in association with this project will be available in early 2009.
Emma Lees devises new Bioconjugation method for lInking QDs to Biomolecules
Emma Lees has made a fundamental breakthrough in QD phase transfer
and stabilization for biolabelling. In conjunction with the Ludwig
Cancer Institute, the new QDs show remarkable stability in buffers
and negligible non-specific binding to cancer cells. Using
ultracentrifugation techniques pioneered at the Bio21 Institute by
Geoff Howlett and colleagues, conjugation to proteins can be
quantified as shown in Nanoletters (click to publication). A new
method for quantitatively linking the QDs to antibodies, enzymes and
proteins has been developed. This project is part of a DEST funded
International Program in QD Biolabelling with CSIRO, the Ludwig
Institute and international partners.
Students interested in applications of QDs to biological systems are
welcome to discuss ideas and projects with staff at the NSL.
Fluorescence (left) and bright field (right) images of fixed LIM1215
cells stained with QDs, showing control of non-specific binding to the
cell surface with different surface chemistries.Fluorescence image of four QD samples in CHCl3 and in water.
Samples were excited with a handheld UV lamp at 365 nm.
Congratulations to Emma Lees, Ann Gooding and Ben Mashford, who are all attending and presenting at the international Nanomaterials Conference scheduled for early December in Cancun, Mexico. Ben will also be attending the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston and Emma will be visiting a lab in Washington DC.
Awards:
Congratulations to PhD student Ben Mashford who was awarded the ANFF (Australian National Fabrication Facility) Poster Prize at ICONN 2008.
Congratulations also to Ann Gooding and Carolina Novo who were both awarded the ARCNN Young Nanotechnology Ambassador Award.
They are pictured below with the convenor of the ARC Nanotechnology network,Professor Jagadish, Professor Max Lu from UQ and Dr Ian McKinnon from the ARC.
Carolina Novo received an Honorable Mention by NanoVic at the Nanotechnology Victoria Art Prizes in Melbourne (April, 2007). She also received a Bio21 Travel Award, by the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne and a Student Bursary from the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Society, to attend the ACMM-20 & IUMAS-IV Conference in Perth (December, 2007).
Conference Updates:
For more information, go to: http://www.ausnano.net/iconn2010/