ELECTRICAL STIMULATION ON ORGANIC CONDUCTORS
With
Distinguished Professor Gordon Wallace AO,
Executive Research Director
Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI)
University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia | November 2025
Professor Gordon Wallace AO is the Founder and Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) at the University of Wollongong and Founding Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) Materials Node. He was previously the Executive Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES).
He was awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship in Nanobionics in 2011, appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his commitment to research collaboration and innovation in 2017, elected as a Fellow, Royal Society of NSW in 2017, and appointed to Prime Ministers Knowledge Nation 100 in 2015. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2022.
Over his career, Professor Wallace has attracted over $100M in competitive funding and his team was awarded an ARC Centre ($7.3M over 5 years) in 2003, which was subsequently upgraded in 2005 to an ARC Centre of Excellence ($14M over 5 years). A 3-year extension ($7.5M) of this Centre was awarded in 2010.
In 2014 he led a team successful in attracting a further 7 years ($25M) funding to ACES. This core funding has been supplemented by an ARC Federation Fellowship and Laureate Fellowship, ARC and NHMRC project grants, CRC projects (CRC Polymer a,CRC Hearing and Marine Bioproducts CRC), funding from the Defence Advanced Research Program Agency (USA), CSIRO, DSTO, the NSW Government and recently MTP Connect and ARENA.
In 2009, he was instrumental in attracting $50M in Federal Government funding to establish a Materials Processing and Device Fabrication Facility at UOW. To date, he is the Chief Scientist on the ($35M) BIENCO project and belongs on the Executive Committee Board alongside BIENCO CEO Danielle Fisher and Project Lead Gerard Sutton.
Since 2023, Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) has also been a crucial member of BIENCO, a world-first consortium of clinical practitioners, researchers and bioengineers addressing the global challenge of corneal blindness. He has published in excess of 1,200 refereed journal publications that have attracted more than 72,000 citations with an H-index of 123 (Scopus).He is named as a co-inventor on more than 60 patents. He is the lead author on three monographs entitled “Organic Bionics” (Wiley- VCH 2012), “Intelligent Polymer Systems” and “3D Bioprinting: Printing Parts for Bodies” (2014) and has also authored an additional 38 book chapters.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0381-7273
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Identification, characterisation and role of leader cells in ovarian cancer progression
Dr. Maree Bilandzic is a molecular cancer biologist dedicated to advancing the understanding and treatment of ovarian cancer (OC). Her research addresses critical gaps in OC treatment by investigating the mechanisms behind metastasis, chemotherapy resistance, and tumour recurrence. By utilising innovative methodologies and disease-representative models, Dr. Bilandzic has pioneered the identification and characterisation of leader cells (LCs)—a unique, stem-like subpopulation within tumours that plays a crucial role in OC progression.
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Supportive care for people living with or beyond cancer treatment
Dr Hannah Wardill is a Hospital Research Foundation Fellow and lead of the Supportive Oncology Research Group (SORG), in the School of Biomedicine, University of Adelaide and Precision Cancer Medicine Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). She is an Executive Board Member of the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer / International Society for Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO) and Chair of both MASCC/ISOO Patient Partnership Committee & the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) Cancer Symptom Trials (Gut Dysfunction Node; supported by Cancer Australia).
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Targeting chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer patients
Dr Alex Cole, from the Centenary Institute’s Centre for Biomedical AI, is now leading the research focused on developing a new treatment to counteract a protein called follistatin (FST), known for making ovarian cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy.
By employing cutting-edge molecular biology and directed evolution techniques, the project aims to create nanobodies—small, precise molecules—that can block FST. If successful, these nanobodies could enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy and improve ovarian cancer treatment rates.
