OUR CAPABILITIES 

Andrew has over 20 years’ experience in pluripotent stem cell (PSC) biology, bioprocess, project management and commercialisation. Andrew received his PhD in 2008 from the University of New South Wales looking at improvements to pluripotent cell expansion through low oxygen culture and proteomic assessment of feeder layer secretomes. As a PostDoc from 2008 to 2013 at The AIBN, Andrew continued his interest in process development and scale up of pluripotent cells. He developed a diverse set of skills that included bio-functionalised smart surfaces, bacterial based expression of extracellular matrix fragments, bioreactor technologies and polymer chemistry. In mid-2013, Andrew took a position as a Project Manager/Lead Scientist at the Centre for Commercialisation of Regenerative Medicine (Toronto, Canada) managing a range of regenerative medicine based projects. Returning to Australia, and the AIBN, Andrew continued his work on bioreactor based expansion of pluripotent cells and differentiation to cardiomyocytes. This work is now an on-going collaboration with stem cell scientists and clinicians around Australia as a joint recipient of an MRFF-Stem Cell Therapies Mission grant to drive the work to Phase I clinical trials. Andrew has joined StemCore bringing his management and stem cell biology experience to help drive StemCore’s strategic direction.

Desi’s innovative mindset, combined with deep scientific and technical knowledge of mammalian cell culture and biological assays is responsible for driving the production of high-quality products at StemCore. She has extensive knowledge and expertise in reprogramming and differentiation. She is responsible for project planning, process development, research, innovation, and laboratory management. Desi completed a PhD in Neuroscience at Griffith University. Her scientific and technical expertise resides in the fields of neurogenesis and stem cell biology. Before joining StemCore, she worked at the Centre for Stem Cell Ageing and Regenerative Engineering at the AIBN. Her research focused on the engineering of accelerated models for stem cell ageing that could serve as a platform for investigating regenerative technologies. Desi also worked as a clinical scientist at the Cancer Collaborative Biobank (PAH) and Queensland’s Children’s Tumour Bank where she gained invaluable knowledge and skills in microsurgery, biobanking, sample retrieval and processing to establish patient-derived models and for use in other downstream assays. She joined StemCore in 2020 and is primarily responsible for running the cell reprogramming and iPSC generation pipelines.

Merve is responsible for the generation and characterization of transgenic human pluripotent stem cell lines using CRISPR/Cas9 and similar advanced technologies. Merve graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Istanbul Kultur University (Turkey). In 2018, she joined StemCore under a mentorship program, where she gained advanced cell culture skills, reprogramming experience and cell analysis techniques. She completed her Masters of Molecular Biology Research Extensive degree at the University of Queensland and received a Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence. During her Master’s, she completed a major research project on the design and generation of tools for advanced human stem cell functional genomics. She joined StemCore full time in 2019 as a Research Specialist, and applies her excellent understanding and practical skills in molecular biology and genetics to provide high quality client services.

Mahfuz brings 7+ years of multidisciplinary research experience in StemCore on developing and optimising stem cell maintenance and their differentiation, cell reprogramming processes, and advanced cell-based assays for drug screening and disease modelling. He has robust skill sets in microfluidics, large-scale bioreactors, biomaterials, molecular biology, data analytics, computational biology, and project management. His PhD research (at Tokyo University) was on microbioreactor-based control of stem cell microenvironment and optimisation of the reactor through Systems Biology modelling in 3D. Mahfuz is also a founder at nXr (nxref.com) – a next-generation reference manager that facilitates accurate referencing and peer review. He is interested in supporting researchers to achieve robust research outcomes by sharing his multidisciplinary experience and providing quality stem cell products through StemCore services. His research works list can be found here https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=bXfaf_EAAAAJ and his LinkedIn profile can be found here https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmchowdhury/