Spotlight on…Assoc Prof Yuling Wang

ARC FUTURE FELLOW, SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES, FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

What’s your area of research?

I am an interdisciplinary researcher working across chemistry, physics, engineering, and biomolecular sciences. My current research focuses on the development of platform technology that utilizes rationally designed multifunctional nanomaterials, spectroscopic techniques (e.g. surface-enhanced Raman scattering) and sensors for highly sensitive structural detection of disease biomarkers, with the aim to enable point-of-care testing and in vitro diagnostics.

What is the problem you aspire to solve?

Biomarkers hold much promise for the early and rapid detection of cancer and other diseases. In theory, multiple diseases could be diagnosed simultaneously at the point-of-care. But in reality, the lack of ultrasensitive technology is holding back the potential of biomarkers. My research effort is to provide innovative technologies that could rapidly and sensitively detect and monitor multiple biomarkers simultaneously in patient samples, thus delivering on the promise of biomarkers.

How do you fund your research?

It’s hard, but we try every single opportunity to seek funding through grants from the Australian Research Council, Cancer Institute, Macquarie University internal grants, as well as the industry-funded grant.

What’s a recent success that you’re proud of?

I have been recently awarded an ARC Future Fellowship, which I was so excited about. In the next 4 years, I will be able to work with world-renowned scientists to create an innovative and robust platform that will be used to profile the multi-omics signature of small extracellular vesicles secreted from host-pathogen interactions. We anticipate that this platform will be capable of delivering accurate sensing results and offering enormous potential for improved health and environmental outcomes, with applications in the life, agricultural and environmental science industries.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to an early career researcher?

Seek out a mentor who really cares about you. Set up regular meetings and prepare the meetings with your mentor.

What do you find most rewarding about your job?

Seeing students succeed in their projects, with publications, awards, and grant applications. I really enjoy working with students in the lab. Their success is also my success.

What do you find most challenging about your job?

Time management. I hate to do last-minute things, but I find it’s very challenging to get things done far before the deadline.

February 2022

Spotlight on…Dr Sasha Tetu

SENIOR LECTURER, SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES, FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

What’s your area of research?

My research looks at what kinds of microbes are present in different environments and what factors lead to certain microbes being more or less successful in a particular habitat. I also look at how bacteria adapt to different environmental pressures.

Many bacteria are amazingly adaptable, able to pick up new genes from the environment and use this new genetic information to deal with challenging conditions. In the past microbiologists have mostly thought about this from the perspective of disease, but I am interested in exploring how we can use this to our advantage and put bacteria to work, producing things of interest or helping to clean up environmental pollutants.

What inspires you?

I am inspired to tell the story of how critical bacteria are to good health in people, plants and animals, and also the planet.

Bacteria have had mostly bad publicity in the past, being considered mainly as disease-causing “germs”. Happily, this has started to change, and more people are learning about how bacteria can contribute to good health, due largely to interest in the gut microbiome. I hope to help to extend this awareness of the usefulness of bacteria, highlighting how bacteria contribute not just to our health, but also to healthy growth of plants and animals as well as supporting ecosystem health on land and sea via contributions to the food chain and nutrient cycling.

What’s a recent success that you’re proud of?

I am part of a team which was recently awarded an ARC Linkage Project to support industry-linked research into how drones might contribute to revegetation efforts here in Australia. My part will be looking at whether drone-planted seeds may benefit from a coating of “good microbes” to help with native seed germination and plant growth in efforts to revegetate degraded land.

It is fantastic to be involved in applied microbiology research with potential conservation outcomes and have a chance to collaborate with my good friends in plant biology.

What do you find most rewarding about your job?

Being able to interact with a great group of colleagues – I have been fortunate to have had a fantastic group of supportive work mates across all my years here at Macquarie, which has helped me to stay motivated and keep my head up when funding applications don't come through.

I also enjoy being able to teach a new group of students each year about all the roles the microorganisms play in human heath, industry, agriculture, etc. If some proportion leave with a better understanding of good handwashing technique AND an idea of what is now possible in modern day microbiology, I’m happy.

What do you find most challenging about your job?

Balancing all the research, teaching and administrative obligations whilst still finding time to hang out with my partner and two primary school age children – I am all too aware that the window of time where my kids want me to play lego and read to them won’t last forever!

July 2021