Warkiani lab

​Principal Investigator

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Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering
Core member, Center for Health Technologies (CHT) & Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices (IBMD)
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Email: majid.warkiani@uts.edu.au
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Graduate Students

​Postdoc

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Dr. Sareh Zhand completed her PhD in Microbiology in 2017 and during her PhD she focused on virotherapy of colorectal cancer using oncolytic poliovirus and built strong background in molecular and cellular biology. Due to her interest in cancer immunotherapy, she joined UTS School of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Prof Warkiani in 2019. She developed Metal Organic Framework as a novel model for improving the sensitivity of biological assays. Her main research focus is on exosomes, characterization of highly sensitive method for the detection of cancer derived exosome, separation of exosome subpopulation using microfluidic devices, and molecular analysis of the exosome content in various cancers.

Direct Supervisor

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Jesus Shrestha (2018-2021) is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney in the faculty of Biomedical Engineering. He completed his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from Kathmandu Medical College, Nepal followed by over 2 years of clinical experience as a Medical doctor. He also worked as an overseas researcher for “Re-sequencing project of 1,000 Southeast Asian Individuals using the 100 Pharmacogene-NGS panel” project. He is currently working under the supervision of Prof. Majid Warkiani and Dr. Maliheh Ghadiri on development of Microfluidic Lung-on-a-Chip models.   
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  • Sajad Razavi Bazaz (2018-2021) is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He received his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran in 2015. Afterwards, he completed his Master degree at Tehran University, Iran, as a first rank student in Biomedical Engineering in 2017. During his Master thesis, he focused on numerical simualtion of microfluidic systems such as micromixers and micro-PCR machines, and established a broad interest in CFD simualtions of LOC platforms.  As an engineer, he developed an interest in statistical optimization methods and began to apply these knowledge to microfluidic devices. Following his passion in microfluidics, he joined UTS’ school of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Warkiani. Currently, he is engaged in developing of different “plug-and-play” microfluidic devices using various 3D printing technologies.
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Lin Ding (2018-2021) is a PhD candidate in the School of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He received his B.Sc. degree with honours from the University of Sheffield, England and M.Sc. from UTS in 2018. He now transferred to the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology to join Dr Warkiani’s group, with co-supervision of Professor Tipper, the School of Biomedical Engineering, UTS and Prof. Vesey, Regenus Ltd. He is working on design and development of novel microfluidic systems for large-scale manufacturing of Stem Cells using SMART micro-carries and also development of new tools for extraction and study of exosomes. 
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Hamidreza Aboulkheyr (2018-2021) is a PhD candidate in School of Biomedical Engineering at UTS.  He received his BSc degree in the field of genetics. In 2013, he completed his Master degree in Bioscience and Biotechnology with special focus on cancer biology from University Technology Malaysia. Afterwards, in 2014, he joined to one of the top research institute in Iran known as Royan Institute of Stem Cells Biology and Technology as research assistant in the field of cancer genetics and molecular oncology. During the four years’ experience, he has been involved with numerous projects particularly in-vitro tumor modeling and drug screening. Hamidreza has interest in molecular and cellular biology of lung cancer, lung tumor microenvironment, tumor-on-chip, and cancer immunotherapy and targeted therapy. In his current research project, he is trying model and asses the immunomodulatory role of key components in the tumour microenvironment (TME) using 3D microfluidic devices.
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Steven Vasilescu (2019-2022) is a PhD candidate in the School of Biomedical Engineering at UTS. He concluded his undergraduate study at UTS in 2018 with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor of Biotechnology. Steven has been heavily involved in the development of nanomaterials for medical diagnostics within the Institute of Biomedical Materials and Devices (IBMD) at UTS for the past three years. Steven is currently tackling infertility issues through the development of microfluidic assisted reproductive technologies. Under the supervision of Associate Professor Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, Steven aims to create safer and more reliable treatment options for couples undergoing fertility treatments.

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Dorsa Morshedi Rad (2019-2022) is a PhD candidate at the UTS School of Biomedical Engineering. She received her bachelor degree in cell and molecular biology with honors (1st rank) from the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM). Afterwards, she completed her master degree in Medical Genetics at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) where she worked on the expression profiling of miRNAs in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) through miRNA sequencing. Her current research interests focus on design and development of new microfluidic systems for intra-cellular delivery of various cargos into the cells.


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​Payar Radfar (2020-2023) is a PhD candidate in the School of Biomedical Engineering at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). In 2018, he completed his undergraduate studies at Auckland University of Technology in Mechanical Engineering with a First-Class Honours. His high GPA placed him in the top 1% engineering undergraduate students of AUT in 2018. Payar’s background mainly falls in application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) within different industries such as; biomedical devices, wind power generation and HVAC design. Furthermore, he has worked with multiple start-up companies and has a great interest in entrepreneurship. Payar is a passionate engineer who wishes to learn innovative concepts in single cell industry and his research focuses on development of next generation technologies in this field.  
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Dale Mark Goss (2021-2025) is a PhD candidate in the School of Biomedical Engineering at UTS. He attained a Bachelor of Science with Honours, and a Master of Science in Medical Physiology with a focus on Male Reproductive Biology, at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). In 2019, he moved to Australia and undertook a Master of Clinical Embryology at Monash University (Melbourne) and began performing research in age-related infertility at the Fertility Research Centre and Ageing Lab at University of New South Wales (Sydney). Dale then decided to utilise his specialised training in Embryology and migrate into Clinical IVF. Dale currently works at Australia’s largest IVF network, IVFAustralia, as an Embryologist performing all laboratory aspects of IVF. With a keen interest in male infertility and embryology, Dale is focussing on Microfluidic applications to improve outcomes of fertility treatment, as well as the important mechanisms by which seminal exosomes influence fertility.
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Hojjatollah Nazari (2021-2025) is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He received his B.Sc. in Medical Laboratory Sciences from Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2012. Afterwards, he attained his M.Sc. degree in Medical Nanotechnology at Iran University of Medical Sciences as a first-rank student in 2017. During his Master’s thesis, he focused on fabricating different nanostructures for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and developing MRI Nanoprobes. After his MSc, he began performing as a research assistant at the Research Center for Advanced Technologies in Cardiovascular Medicine (Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran), focusing on biomaterials, microfluidics, nano-enabled electrically conductive scaffolds, and exosome therapy (2017-2021). He was also able to join a team of surgeons and stem cell scientists and expand his research in exosome-therapy into clinical trial phases I at one of the most prominent Colorectal Surgery Research Centers (Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2019-2021) in Iran. With a deep curiosity in regenerative medicine, Hojjatollah focuses on Microfluidic applications to manipulate exosomes in micro/nanoscale to improve our understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms exosome-therapy.

Co/joint-Supervisor

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Fateme Mirakhorli (2020-2024) is jointly working as a PhD student at Climate Change Cluster (C3), Faculty of Science and School of Biomedical Engineering at University of Technology Sydney. She holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Shahrood University of Technology, and obtained her MSc in Biomedical Engineering at University of Tehran, which allowed her to be inspired with the combination of biology and engineering science, the point that engineering principals can be applied to biological science. Fateme is currently engaged in microfluidics to further algal research and propose novel miniaturized integrated platforms for microalgae milking.
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Pritam Bordhan (2020-2024) is a PhD candidate from the Faculty of Science, jointly supervised by Distinguished Professor Dayong Jin (Faculty of Science) and Associate Professor Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani (Faculty of Biomedical Engineering). He completed a Bachelor of Biotechnology degree in 2019 and Bachelor of Biotechnology (Honours) research year in 2020 from UTS, during which he focused on generating isogenic ovarian cancer cell lines targeting p53 using plasmid based CRISPR-cas9 technology. He has keen interest in cancer genetics and molecular oncology and has relevant industry experiences at Westmead Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and SpeeDx Pty Ltd (Sydney based molecular diagnostic company). His PhD research work will focus on ‘Targeting circulating tumour cells (CTCs) using a novel integrated microfluidic system as a potential diagnostic medium for cancer cell analysis’.
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William Hansen (2021-2023) is a PhD candidate with the School of Life Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He completed a Bachelors of Biotechnology (Honours) at UTS with his thesis on the microfluidic analysis of membrane disruption-based intracellular delivery. He is continuing his research under the supervision of Dr Charles Cranfield and Professor Majid Warkiani with the development of novel intracellular delivery protocols as well as his work as the Faculty of Science WHS PhD representative.

​Lab Alumni (since 2014)

Undergraduates
  1. Anthony Shi (B.Sc.)
  2. Saiful Anuar (B.Sc.)
  3. Shayla Carlin (B.Sc.)
  4. Ashik Kavanakudy (B.Sc.)
  5. Anthony Zada (B.Sc.)
  6. Adam Joffe (B.Sc.)
  7. Moses Lee (B.Sc.)
  8. Ahmad Firdaus Abu Hanipah (B.Sc.)
  9. Ainol basyiruddin ahmad (B.Sc.)
  10. Muhammad Ikhlas (B.Sc.)
  11. Benjamin Goodnow (B.Sc.)
  12. Menglu Liu (B.Sc.)
  13. Akrit Sethi (B.Sc.)
  14. Kenny Ng (B.Sc.)
  15. Steven Vasilescu (B.Sc.)
  16. Nick Rabey (B.Sc.)
  17. Issac Lee (B.Sc.)
  18. Shayan Khorsandi (B.Sc.)
  19. Sabrina Lo (B.Sc.)
  20. Ayesha Syed (B.Sc.)
  21. Katherine Dewick (B.Sc.)
Postgraduates
1. Danlin Zhao (M.Sc. by course)
2. Tejas Pitale (M.Sc. by course)
3. Hanming Zhang (M.Sc. by course)
4. Lei Sun (M.Sc. by course)
5. Jayden W (M.Sc. by course)
6. Jingrui Huang (M.Sc. by course)
7. Derek Chung (M.Sc. by research)
8. Raghav Lakshman (M.Sc.)
9. Alireza Gerami (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
10. Mehdi Rafeie (Ph.D.)
11. Shahin Hosseinzadeh (M.Sc. by research)
12. Fangxu Du (M.Sc. by research)
13. Navid Kashaninezhad (Postdoc)
14. Reza Moloudi (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
15. Maira Seyed (Ph.D.)
16. Amin Hassanzadeh (Ph.D.)
17. Meysam Rezaei (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
​18. Mohammad Amin Raoufi (Ph.D, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad & MQ University)
19. Hossein Ahmadi Nejad Joushani (Research Assistant)
20. Joanna Kapeleris (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
21. Meysam Rezaei (Postdoc)
22. Mona Tarek Elsemary (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
23. Ziyao Zhang (M.Sc. by course)
24. Alexey Rzhevskiy (Ph.D., co-supervisor)
25. Mahsa Asadnia (Ph.D.)
 Visiting Scholars
1. Marcel Welleweerd (M.Sc.), Visiting Student, University of Twente
2. Mathijs Bronkhorst (M.Sc.), Visiting Student, University of Twente
3. Omid Rouhi (M.Sc.), Visiting Student, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
4. Asma Mihandoost (Ph.D), Visiting Student, Alzahra University
5. Eric Guthmann (B.Sc.), Visiting Student, Germany
6. Shohreh Azadi (Ph.D), Visiting Student, Amirkabir University, Iran
7. Melane Shanmugavel (B.Sc.), Visiting Student Germany
8. Olly Mills (B.Sc.), Visiting Student, U of Sydney
9. Fatemeh Ezheian (Ph.D), Royan Institute, Esfahan, Iran. 

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