POST STROKE BRAIN RECOVERY TARGETING BLOOD FLOW AND VESSEL HEALTH
Dr Daniel Beard,
Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle
Group Leader, Neurovascular Research Laboratory
New South Wales, Australia &
Visiting Scientist,
University of Oxford, United Kingdom &
Founder and Chief Scientific Officer
ShearFlow
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Newcastle, Australia | May 2026
Dr Daniel Beard is a Senior Lecturer and Group Leader of the Neurovascular Research Laboratory at the University of Newcastle, with a distinguished career in stroke research. Dr Beard completed his PhD in Human Physiology in 2015, uncovering the impact of intracranial pressure on collateral vessel failure. He has held prestigious research and teaching roles at the University of Oxford and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, contributing to international collaborations on neurovascular protection. His research has been supported by competitive grants, including an NHMRC Ideas Grant, and he has received numerous awards for innovation, research excellence and teaching excellence, including:
-Winner of the Challenger Pitch Prize at the Proto Axiom Challenger Summit (2024).
-Paul Dudley White International Scholar for the highest-ranked Australian abstract at the 2022 International Stroke Conference, New Orleans.
-Recipient of the Learning Design and Teaching Innovation Teaching Excellence Award and Mid-Career Teaching Award from the University of Newcastle (2024).
His most recent work focuses on understanding and improving collateral blood flow during ischaemic stroke. Notably, his groundbreaking work on shear stress and cerebral blood flow with renowned researchers at Harvard University, resulted in a patented nanoparticle therapy that selectively boosts brain perfusion during stroke, saving brain tissue and improving patient outcomes. This work was recently published in Advanced Science: https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202506276.
Dr Beard is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the University spinout ShearFlow that is now commercializing this technology to reach the clinic. This work aims to deliver targeted stroke therapies that could give patients a improved chance at recovery and a better quality of life.
Source: Supplied and adapted
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3720-7588
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Dr. Elizabeth Goodall (BMedSci Hons, MBBS Hons, FRACP, FRCPA) is a PhD student and early career researcher with La Trobe University and the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI), and Haematologist at Austin Health and Monash Health, Melbourne.
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Brain ageing, dementia and psychiatric disorders
Professor Perminder Sachdev graduated from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, in 1978 and completed his MD in Psychiatry there in 1983. Following time in New Zealand, he relocated to Australia, where he completed psychiatric training and a PhD at UNSW in 1991. His doctoral work examined ethnopsychological concepts in Māori culture. His early research focused on drug-induced movement disorders, including akathisia, tardive dyskinesia and neuroleptic malignant syndrome, while his later work has centred on dementia and pre-dementia syndromes, particularly neuroimaging, biomarkers and risk factors.
