Research Supervisor Connect
In this exciting PhD opportunity, you will investigate the application and analysis of a novel biodegradable blood vessel graft in a large animal model, that aims to be used in future to replace damaged or blocked arteries. It is hypothesized that as the graft degrades, it will be replaced by new healthy tissue and thus aims to regenerate damaged vessels.
Camperdown - Charles Perkins Centre
Current blood vessel grafts that replace damaged vessels are typically made from materials that are permanent, become blocked at small diameters and are too stiff. In collaboration with biomaterials and tissue engineering experts, you will test a novel blood vessel graft that degrades as new tissue forms, is resistant to blockages and has similar elastic properties to native arteries. Whilst our collaborators have successfully tested the grafts in a mouse model, it has not yet been tested in a large animal model. Therefore, for this first project theme you will focus on the application and analysis of a novel biodegradable blood vessel graft in a large animal model. For the initial in vivo component, you will work closely with a large collaborative team of imaging specialists, surgeons and hybrid theatre technicians to produce functional preclinical data. Following vessel degradation and new tissue formation, you will perform comprehensive in vitro analyses of the grafts, spatially resolving the gene and protein expression of the neovessel, whilst comparing it to native tissue.
Throughout this project you will be fully supported by a diverse and prestigious supervisory team. This includes the Baird Institute’s Centre for Heart Failure and Diseases of the Aorta team:
· internationally renowned cardiothoracic surgeon and scientist Professor Paul Bannon,
· imaging specialist Dr Robert Hume (who you will be work closely with on the project)
· highly esteemed clinician scientists Associate Professor Sean Lal and Professor John O’Sullivan.
· collaboration with internationally recognized award-winning biomaterial scientists within Professor Anthony Weiss’s laboratory, who design and synthesise the vessel grafts you will be working with in the aforementioned large animal model.
You therefore have the unique opportunity to learn from a diverse and highly successful group of established scientists within the award-winning Charles Perkins Centre - a building that contains many of the Universities most influential researchers and contains multiple state-of-the-art facilities.
Please contact Dr Robert Hume if you are interested or have any further questions: robert.hume@sydney.edu.au
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 3407