Join SBA-Sydney on our first event of 2023! The event will be held in person at the UNSW Founders Event Space just a short hop from the centre of Sydney.
Join us for a fun but relaxed evening with two excellent speakers on the topic of synthetic biology and human health. This will be followed by drinks, pizza, and networking – an excellent opportunity to meet your colleagues throughout Sydney.
This event is made possible by our very generous sponsors: SBA, ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Australian Genome Foundry, New England Biolabs, Ginkgo Bioworks and DecodeScience. The two speakers include the following:
A/Prof Nick Coleman is a microbiologist in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, at the University of Sydney. Nick has interests in microbiology, biotechnology, and synthetic biology. He began his career working on pollutant bioremediation, and especially the molecular genetics, enzymes, and evolution of the bacteria responsible. A parallel research stream in biocatalysis emerged, as it became clear that the enzymes that make bad things go away could also be used to accumulate good things. Manysuch enzymes are encoded on plasmids, and projects investigating mobile genetic elements ensued, with relevance to new topic areas such as the problem of antimicrobial resistance. Nick has championed the discipline of synthetic biology at USyd, mentoring iGEM teams from 2013-2022, and incorporating synbioconcepts and methods into undergraduate units of study. Current lab projects include construction of new genetic tools for ‘difficult’ microbes, and metabolic engineering for synthesis of high-value bioactives. Nick is one of the few people in Australia with a licence to manufacture psilocybin… for legit medical use only, of course!
Dr Andrew Care is a Chancellor's ResearchFellow and a Chief investigator in the ARC Research Hub for Integrated Devicesfor End-user Analysis at Low Levels (IDEAL) at the University of TechnologySydney (UTS). Prior to joining UTS, Andrew received a PhD in ‘Chemistry &Biomolecular Sciences’ from Macquarie University (MQ) and completed apost-doctoral position in ‘Nanoparticle-based Drug Delivery Systems’ in theMQ-node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics. During thistime, his research focused on engineering biomolecules that self-assemble intofunctional biomaterials for applied nanobiotechnology. Building on this work,Andrew was awarded a Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship toinvestigate the utility of biologically-derived nanoparticles as therapeutictools. In 2021, Andrew relocated his transdisplinary research program to UTS,where his team continues to develop novel nanotechnologies by combining thefields of nanomedicine, materials science, synthetic biology, pharmacology, andcancer/neuro-biology.
The event is free, and we will provide food and beverages. To get an idea of numbers for catering purposes, ticket sales will close at 5pm on Tuesday the 9th of May.
Date: Thursday the 11th of May at 6pm
Location: Founders Event Space, MichaelCrouch Innovation Centre (MCIC), Room G22 of the Hilmer Building, Ground Floor,UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia
Please sign up using the following link(numbers are for catering purposes): https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/ancestral-antibiotics-to-nanoparticles-synbio-and-the-health-revolution-tickets-621270826767
If interested in signing up to our mailing list: SBA Sydney Newsletter. SBA-Sydney is the local node of theSynthetic Biology Australasia society (SBA), our mission is to grow Sydney's SynBiocommunity and promote collaboration between academia and industry.
Contact us: sbasydney@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @SBASydney
If you interested in engaging, get in touch with us @ sbasydney@gmail.com or on twitter #SBASydney!
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