RESEARCHER PROFILE
Huiwen Pang, PhD candidate (Filmed Nov 2023)
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
University of Queensland
Australia
Huiwen Pang is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, University of Queensland, focusing on biomedical health research. Prior to commencing his PhD, Huiwen studied animal genetics in his Masters degree at Huazhong Agriculture University in China.
People with diabetes, especially Type 1 diabetes, largely rely on the insulin injections or insulin pumps to control their high blood glucose levels, which is painful and has a high risk of infections.
Huiwen Pang is conducting research on nano-based drug formulations for Type 1 diabetes treatment, with a focus on using nanomaterials to load insulin for oral administration and employing anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory approaches to mitigate damage to beta cells.
The treatment and prevention of Type 1 diabetes remain largely unknown due to the autoimmune system’s attack on the pancreas and beta cells. Huiwen’s research focuses on nano based drug formulations for Type 1 diabetes treatment due to unknown triggering mechanism of autoimmune system attacking pancreas.
Huiwen Pang’s goal to make his own mark in the field of biomedical health is driven by inspiration from distinguished scholars and their research outcomes. Huiwen is also driven by having meaningful impact on people’s health, inspired by the challenges faced by patients with diabetes, including his own grandfather.
Huiwen enjoys hiking each weekend in Brisbane and the surrounding areas, taking in the mountains and the lakes which give he finds relaxing.
-
Understanding the experience of pain for novel brain-based treatments
Associate Professor Tasha Stanton leads the Persistent Pain Research Group at SAHMRI. She is also co-Director of IIMPACT in Health at the University of South Australia, Adelaide. She is a clinical pain neuroscientist, with original training as a physiotherapist, and her research focusses on pain – why do we have it and why doesn’t it go away?
-
Visceral pain and the gut-brain axis
Professor Stuart Brierley is Director of the Visceral Pain Research Group, Director of the Hopwood Centre for Neurobiology, and Theme co-Leader of Lifelong Health at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).
Prof Brierley is an international expert on the ‘gut-brain axis’ and chronic visceral pain mechanisms. Current investigations are on a individual cell type called the enterochromaffin cell, and it helps signal pain and anxiety from the gastrointestinal tract to the brain.
-
Exercise therapy for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease
Dr Shelley Keating is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Exercise Physiology and Accredited Exercise Physiologist from the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland. With a strong grounding in exercise metabolism and body composition, Dr Keating’s research centres on the utility of exercise as a therapy for obesity and related cardiometabolic conditions, notably metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
