Bio-Engineering and Nanoscience Symposium 2022 (BEANS)
The Organising Committee
The students, postdocs, and academics making BEANS 2022 possible
Mr. Lachlan Adamson
University of Sydney
Lachlan is a final year PhD student working in Dr. Yu Heng Lau’s research group in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the engineering of prokaryotic protein cages for enzymatic catalysis. Outside of the lab he divides his time between cooking too much food in the kitchen and learning how to sew.
Lachlan earned a Bachelor of Science majoring in Chemistry and Microbiology at the University of Sydney in 2017. In 2018 he was awarded first class Honours in Chemistry. His current PhD research is supported by the CSIRO Future Science Platform in Synthetic Biology, and is affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology.
Ms. Min Huang
University of New South Wales
Min is a final year PhD student at the EMBL Node for Single Molecules Sciences at UNSW, Sydney. She is working on using DNA nanotechnology to construct a self-assembling nanoscale device capable of accurately sequencing a single strand of DNA. Min loves camping, dancing, cooking and scuba diving.
She completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Pharmaceutical Sciences at China Pharmaceutical University in 2012, while competing in the 2011 MCM/ICM Contest and placing Meritorious Winner. She then completed a Master of Medicine studying Pharmaceutical Analysis at Pecking Union Medical College, China, in 2015. Moreover, she moved to industry and worked in YaoPharma Co., Ltd, a leading pharmaceutical company in China, in 2015, and was promoted to Associate Manager in the Research and Development Centre in 2018. In 2019, she started her PhD at UNSW Sydney and was awarded the prestigious UNSW Scientia PhD Scholarship.
She is now working on her PhD thesis entitled ” Nanobiotechnology: Self-assembly of a bio-driven single molecule DNA sequencer”, which is due for completion in September 2023.
Ms. Donna McNeale
Griffith University
Donna is a final year PhD candidate in Dr Frank Sainsbury’s research group in the Centre for Cell Factories and Biopolymers at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery. Her research focuses on the self-assembly of virus-derived protein cages and controlling enzyme loading for biocatalysis. When she is not in the lab, Donna enjoys going on nature walks, hiking, and buying too many plants.
Donna completed a Bachelor of Science, followed by a Master of Clinical Microbiology at Griffith University in 2014. Her PhD research is supported by the CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform.
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Ms. Lauren Lowe
University of New South Wales
Lauren is a 2nd year PhD candidate at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at UNSW Sydney. In her research she investigates how artificial cells can receive the nutrients required to maintain membrane growth, helping to answer questions about how primitive life emerged on Earth. Outside of science, she enjoys playing softball and reading fantasy novels.
She completed a Bachelor of Advanced Science at UNSW in 2020, majoring in Chemistry and Pharmacology, and received first class Honours from the School of Chemistry. Lauren regularly teaches and mentors university students participating in chemistry and careers development courses at UNSW. She also shares her love of science with high school students through various outreach activities.
Ms. Klementine Burrell-Sander
University of Sydney
Klementine Burrell-Sander is a first year PhD student in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, where she works under the supervision of Prof. Peter Rutledge and A/Prof. Alice Motion. Her project involves using traditional medicinal chemistry to synthesise new drug candidates for drug-resistant tuberculosis, as well as studying scholarly communication in the field of natural sciences to better understand collaborative networks in drug discovery. She is passionate about science education, and teaches regularly across multiple chemistry courses at the University of Sydney. When not in the lab, she loves to read and bake gluten free versions of every dessert under the sun.
She earned a Bachelor of Advanced Science studying Chemistry and Pharmacology in 2020, and received first class Honours in Chemistry from the University of Sydney in 2021. Her work is currently supported by the John A Lamberton research scholarship.
Dr. Minh Tri Luu
University of Sydney
Dr Minh Tri Luu is holding a Postdoctoral Research Associate position in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He obtained his BChE in 2016 at the University of Sydney, working on optimising the performance of a CO2 capture facility in a coal fire power plant. He then enrolled in a PhD course also at the University of Sydney and received the award in 2021. His PhD research focuses on how to utilise DNA as a building material to design self-assembled DNA nanostructure with complexities approaching those found in cell machinery. Currently, he is working on multiple exciting research projects including target drug delivery in the brain for treating Alzheimer’s diseases using DNA logic gates and switchable high-order structures with metallic nanoparticles for building advanced functional materials.
Ms. Sacha Pulsford
Australian National University
Sacha is a first year PhD student working on protein design and evolution in Prof. Colin Jackson’s group at the Australian National University in Canberra. She works on a range of protein engineering projects with a particular focus on bacterial microcompartments and how their shells assemble. Sacha is a passionate environmentalist and views protein design as an exciting tool to reimagine how we consume and create resources.
Sacha completed a Bachelor of Philosophy (Sci, Hons) at the ANU in 2021 specialising in plant biochemistry and photosynthesis. Her Honours work investigated the regulation and encapsulation of key cargo enzymes within cyanobacterial protein microcompartments. This research was recognised by the Janet Elspeth Crawford prize and the University Medal for Biology. Currently, her PhD research is associated with the ARC Center of Excellence for Synthetic Biology and is supported by a Westpac Future Leaders scholarship.
Dr. Shelley Wickham
University of Sydney
Dr Shelley Wickham is an ARC DECRA Fellow, Westpac Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Schools of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Sydney. She earned both her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, working on photonic structures found in biology. She received her PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Oxford, UK, working on building synthetic molecular motors out of DNA. She then moved to a postdoctoral fellow position at Harvard Medical School, USA, based in the Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where she worked on designing 3-dimensional DNA origami nanostructures, and using them to study biological systems.
Dr. Yu Heng Lau
University of Sydney
Dr Yu Heng Lau is a Senior Lecturer and Westpac Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. After obtaining a BSc(Hons) from Sydney, Yu Heng completed a PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He then moved to Harvard Medical School as a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in bioengineering. In mid-2017, he was recruited back to Sydney where he has established a research program that spans the fields of medicinal chemistry and synthetic biology.
Yu Heng is recognised for developing new chemical methods for peptide cyclisation to target oncogenic protein-protein interactions. He has also established genome-scale engineering methods for the reprogramming of synthetic microorganisms, and protein engineering methods for manipulating in vivo self-assembly. Currently, his research program on controlling biomolecular architectures covers two main research themes: 1) Shape-controlled peptides as cancer therapeutic leads that target genome stability at telomeres, and 2) Protein nanocage architectures as synthetic organelles for controlling biocatalysis.