Registrations for the 7th Australian Bioprinting Workshop run by @carminegentile.bsky.social being held December 1-2 at the University of Technology Sydney are still open. Run as a hybrid event for ease of participation. Australian & international speakers. #Ausbioprint 🧪https://www.ausbioprint.com/

Looking forward to a day when I am no longer asked to include animal experiments by reviewers of our research papers. #MedicalResearch #AnimalWelfare #3Rs #DrugRepurposing #Organ-on-a-chip #Tumour-on-a-chip #Tumoroids #Assembloids #Organoids 🧪 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

In this review, @gsilvani.bsky.social, Martina Stenzel, & @kriskilian.bsky.social of @nanomed-unsw.bsky.social discuss how advances in #organoids & perfusable MPS are transforming nanoparticle design & accelerating nanodrug development by enabling more predictive assessments of efficacy.

Important in politics to have competitive oppositions to help to avoid the risk of complacency for those in power. Still so much for labour to achieve, including ‘fixing’ higher education. Suspect that Liberals are way off the pulse of most Australians on this one. #netzero

At a time of scrutiny on university governance it was good to hear in yesterday’s Senate inquiry that @flindersuniversity.bsky.social - has open Council meetings - publishes Council minutes & - staff & student Council members are in the room for confidential sessions www.youtube.com/live/9RAyu17...

Listening to witnesses being sworn in at a Parliamentary Enquiry on university governance ending with “so help me god”. Wondered about the power of these words in a largely secular & multicultural society that Australia is today. Keep this for historical gravitas or maybe we need an alternative?

Watson – who won the Nobel Prize for his role in divining the structure of DNA; was instrumental in initiating and propelling the Human Genome Project; and who became notorious for his history of racist and sexist comments – has died at 97 Read the full story: go.nature.com/47NJ6wy

Science and our wider society is advanced through the practice of basic science. Basic science is the engine that makes it all work. Janni changed the world through her work in fruit fly embryonic development that taught us about evolution, transcription and cell fate during development.

Parliamentary Inquiry into the NSW University Sector - a difficult day for my university. Expertly chaired by The Hon. Dr Sarah KAINE, BEc, PhD MLC (thank you). Acknowledging everyone who spoke today & especially the 3 #UTS students. #Governance #UniversityGovernance #OperationalSustainability

Had the pleasure of presenting with cancer consumer & friend @herbalgill.bsky.social today as part of the 'Consumer Involvement in Research PhD Translational Skills Workshop' run by SPHERE on 'The impact of successful partnerships in cancer research'. Picture is 4 yrs old but msgs still ring true.

Lidia Morawska, an internationally renowned expert in air quality and its impact on human health, has won Australia's most coveted prize for scientific research.

Submitting abstracts with my PhD students to 2026 meetings & hitting home that I still need a lot more of 2025 to achieve that long academic list!! #LorneCancer (www.lornecancer.org) #LorneGenome (www.lornegenome.org)

Young &/or budding academics - if you're asking someone to be a #referee for you, make sure you ask can they be a SUPPORTIVE referee. Tell them about the position & ask their availability to give a reference. Referees - don't put to the bottom of your pile to do 'whenever'. Opportunities pass.

Sadly I heard today that Jim Peacock has died. Jim was the foremost pioneer of plant molecular biology in Australia & globally. He was both my mentor and friend and will be sorely missed by many #plantscience 🧪 www.science.org.au/news-and-eve...

Leadership 101 - ‘Don’t throw your people under the bus’. Glad to see this hold true on the international stage. #Albanese #Rudd

Thrilled to see our preprint featured in Science News! 🩸 Big thanks to Holly Barker for writing such a thoughtful piece about our work. So exciting to see broader attention to menstruation research and new model systems! www.science.org/content/arti...

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉 @karalmckinley.bsky.social We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice. We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

Fantastic talk by Prof Alan D’Andrea (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School) showing how the EWS-FLI1 fusion disrupts POLQ splicing and impairs the MMEJ DNA repair pathway in Ewing sarcoma @Australian Cell Cycle, DNA Repair, and Telomere Meeting 2025 #ACDTM25#CancerResearch

Starting today in Melbourne … I definitely have FOMO but 2 from my lab are there with posters - postdoc @amanialghalayini.bsky.social and PhD student Tali Skipper. Know this will be a great meeting!

Seems that #Darwinian selection is at play in our pond. Breeding when they feel like it, increasingly survivors are black baby fish that eventually turn white. Sometimes they’re quite big before they turn. Camouflage is excellent!! Give it 50 yrs & I think all fish could be white. #NaturalSelection

Made time to watch Jane Goodall's Famous Last Words. By the end my tears were rolling with a strong sense of loss mixed with gratefulness for what she accomplished & shared. Her scientific curiosity, even about death, & her message to retain hope so important. www.netflix.com/au/title/820...

I remain puzzled as to why some continue to trot out that academia is not the "real world". I have endless responsibilities, deadlines, expectations, and work long hours. This is my "real world" & I hope that my efforts over a long career contribute to improving the "real world" of others. 🧪

Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi were honored for research into how the body helps the immune system avoid attacking your own tissues instead of foreign invaders.

My daughter & I had the privilege of listening to Jane Goodall speak in Sydney. A night we will always remember. So sad to wake to the news of her passing this morning. Jane Goodall will be sorely missed but beautifully remembered. A tremendous legacy that will sustain. #RIP #JaneGoodall

Catching the lift with undergrad science students. One of them to another - “They used great language like mRNA vaccine & PCR. YESSSS” (accompanied by fist pump). Me to myself “YESSSS” 😊🧪

Medical Research Future Fund: Advocates urge increased disbursements amid US research cuts “the government could release as much as $1.4 billion each year, more than double the current amount.” Funding delivers breakthroughs! ⁦‪ www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

Celebrating 1st authorships in the group. Congratulations again to 2nd yr PhD student Tali Skipper on her paper out in Cellular Oncology - "Revealing genetic drivers of ovarian cancer and chemoresistance: insights from whole-genome CRISPR-knockout library screens". doi: 10.1007/s13402-025-01102-4 🎉🧪

3D Bioprinted Mini Placentas Poised to Revolutionize Pregnancy Research In a groundbreaking advancement that promises to revolutionize our understanding of pregnancy complications, scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have successfully 3D bioprinted miniature placentas, or…

Our first Editorial is entitled "Women's Health For All". www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

‘3D printed mini-placentas offer a new way to study pregnancy complications’ – University of Technology Sydney researchers create placental organoids that ‘shed light on complications like preeclampsia’: theconversation.com/3d-printed-m... Paper: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

We share the story behind our recent publication in this @springernature.com Behind the Paper blog post 🤰📰🌐 communities.springernature.com/posts/design...

I made the world’s first bioprinted placenta organoids (mini placentas) and they’ve just been published in @natureportfolio.nature.com We found that the matrix environment chosen for these organoids was critical to how they grew and developed 🤰 idp.nature.com/authorize?re...

What a beautiful cover for the very first issue in September of this new journal from the @thelancet.com stable - The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women's Health, @lancetobgyn-wh.bsky.social. #medsky #obgynsky #womenshealthsky #STEM 🧪

Thrilled to share our new paper: "OpenEMMU: A versatile, open-source EdU multiplexing methodology for studying DNA replication and cell cycle dynamics"! We've developed a new resource that make this crucial research more accessible, accurate, powerful and low-cost. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Dare I say *ALL* Australian public universities should be thought of as "national assets", including my own. Good suggestions on #Transparency #ExecutiveSalaries #PublicGood ANU was set up to be a ‘national asset’. 3 ways it can return to its original mission theconversation.com/the-anu-was-...

"to help ensure the fair dissemination of animal-free research & to prevent unnecessary experiments on animals. It is intended to be used by authors who use nonanimal methods & may help prevent and address animal methods bias from manuscript reviewers". #3Rs www.animalmethodsbias.org/author-guide

It's official, I'm one of the judges for the 2025 Great Microscopy Bake-off @ the University of Technology Sydney organised by @louisecole.bsky.social on Oct 13th! Now there's a role! Microscopy-themed or science-related cakes, cupcakes or cookie decoration. Entries from last yr for inspiration 😀🧪

Plates of pasta about to go down well as our research group hosted Professor Caroline Ford and Dr Cecilia Ng on a visit to consider us as a research project site for the new Ainsworth Endometriosis Research Institute (AERI). We had lots to talk about! #endometriosis #AERI

Exceptional final 3 Minute Thesis competition at my university this week. #STEM ones my favourites - Samara Bridge from my Faculty on new ways to detect colorectal cancer with biosensors (brilliant!) & Adam Haysom-McDowell on lung cancer. Adam's slide was superb! So creative. #3MT #PhDStudents 🧪

"Sunday is the 89th anniversary of the last thylacine's death at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo in 1936, which marked the end of the species commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger." 🧪

New paper just out in Cellular Oncology from our lab - "Revealing genetic drivers of ovarian cancer and chemoresistance: insights from whole-genome CRISPR-knockout library screens". Strong insights from first author Tali Skipper in our group. doi.org/10.1007/s134... #ovariancancer #CRISPR-KO 🧪

Wrapping up with a panel in the rare cancers session after my talk last week @ the Ovarian Cancer Australia Symposium 2025 in Melbourne beside my colleague @kylie-gorringe.bsky.social. Looking for new therapies to treat Small Cell Carcinoma of the Ovary, Hypercalcemic Type (SCCOHT). #ovariancancer 🧪

Oh Sydney … I always love flying home to you.

Think this is a good thing to be moving away from focus on animal models. This is especially relevant in the drug repurposing space. Paper assessors need to catch up though - my last 3 rejections have asked for animal models that has been really disappointing. #3Rs inventia.life/resources/bl...

'Culture eats red tape for breakfast' - Mark Noonan ... "The structures that create psychological safety make it possible to test, try, and sometimes get it wrong. Without that safety, people retreat into the protection of delay." This is so true. www.linkedin.com/pulse/cultur...

Registering some members of my team for the 19th Australian Cell Cycle, DNA Repair and Telomere Workshop in Melbourne in October. Early-bird registrations by August 31. 🧪

Listening to the dulcet tones of two of my colleagues giving separate on-line evening lectures across the hall while preparing my own for a workshop session next week. Happy I get to go face-to-face as so much easier to reach and engage with the students #AcademicLife #Teaching #STEM

People weren’t healthier “back in the day.” In 1960s, life expectancy was in the 60s vs. 79 today. Testicular cancer? 95% fatal. Today? 95% survivable. Same with MANY cancers. Infections. Vaccine-preventable illness. We live longer & healthier lives today bc of science. youtu.be/rDx7LrBiMH0?...