RESEARCHER PROFILE (Filmed November 2023)
Dr Felicity Han, Research Fellow
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
University of Queensland, Australia
Applying nanotechnology to chronic pain management
Dr Felicity Han is a Research Fellow and Leader in Pain Relief Innovation, at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in the University of Queensland. Dr Han’s research interests sit at the interface of drug delivery and the pain field. Her overarching research goal is to improve the quality of day to day life of patients suffering from chronic pain, by applying nanotechnology to the development of novel highly effective pain-killer products for improving chronic pain management.
Dr Han’s team have developed five different techniques to produce painkiller-loaded nanoparticles and nanofibers aimed at improving pain relief for patients where available pain-killers either lack efficacy or produce dose-limiting side-effects. With the use of their nanoparticles, Dr Han’s team aim to turn a small but potent peptide that has been on the market for over a decade into an oral treatment for improving pain management that currently lacks efficacy in patients. T
Dr Han’s research focuses on developing drug-products to solve one of the largest unmet medical needs in the pain field through the use of sustainable materials. Her team are currently working on developing multifunctional sutures including biodegradable pain relief sutures and innovative novel nanoparticles, which deliver innate-immune targeting peptides for the treatment of cancer and cancer-related pain. Their research also investigates the role of C5a and C3a in the pathogenesis of chronic pain including neuropathic pain, cancer-related pain, low back pain, and OA pain.
Dr Han works in collaboration with other leading Australian and international researchers to stay at the forefront of the drug delivery systems field and the pain field. They also provide a preclinical evaluation of novel compounds and formulations.
Dr Han enjoy’s volunteering within the academic community, most notably as Head of the SBMS ECR Committee and Treasurer for The Queensland Chinese Association of Scientists and Engineers (QCASE). Currently, she is serving as a guest editor of Pain Research and Management.
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Genetics of the choroid and impact on eye health
Dr Samantha Lee is a Senior Research Fellow at Lions Eye Institute and the University of Western Australia. Dr Lee obtained her PhD in 2017 and the Queensland University of Technology and has since been working on the genetics and environmental causes of various eye diseases, with a focus on glaucoma and myopia. She has published 57 full-length scientific papers and her work has been cited over 1,000 times. She serves on the Editorial Board for the journal BMC Ophthalmology and Scientific Reports, and on the Research Advisory Committee for the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia.
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Novel forms of brain stimulation & psychedelic assisted psychotherapy
Professor Paul Fitzgerald is the Head of the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. He is an academic psychiatrist with a MBBS degree, Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD. He has conducted an extensive range of experimental studies and clinical trials, focused on the development of novel treatment options for patients with mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease.
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Anne O’Neill
STATE GOVERNMENT SUPPORTING MEDICAL RESEARCH
@ NSW HEALTH, NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA
