Our Team

Principal Investigator

Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, Ph.D.
Associate 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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Postdocs

Meysam Rezaei received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Nano-Medicine from the Future Industries Institute (FII) at University of South Australia (UNISA) in 2020. After completion of his degree he was appointed as a post doctoral research associate at School of Biomedical Eng and Physical Sciences (UTS) working on developing the next-generation POCT device for genetic disorders, cancers and infections detection. During his PhD at UNISA, he developed a novel efficient and high-throughput method to isolate circulating trophoblastic fetal cells from maternal blood using inertial microfluidics combined with a downstream genetic analysis using single-cell next generation sequencing (NGS). His work has received significant media attention with 2 TV programs, a newspaper article and 11 online articles including The Lead South Australia in 2018. His invited review paper and perspective in a high-profile journal (Trends in Biotechnology; top 2% in field) led to an invited talk at 2019 MolecularDX Europe, a leading conference in the field.

Graduate Students

Direct Supervisor

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Research Assistant (RA)

Sareh Zhand is a Research Assistant at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She received her Bachelor degree in Cellular and molecular biology from Islamic Azad university of Gorgan, Iran as a first rank student in Cellular and molecular biology in 2008. Afterwards, she completed her Master degree at Islamic Azad university of Zanjan, Iran in Microbiology in 2012. During her Master thesis, she focused on study of genomic structure and mutation analysis of viruses including Hepatitis viruses, HIV and TTV using polymerase chain reaction, DNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. Following her passion in virology, she completed her PhD in Microbiology from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran Iran 2017. During her PhD she focused on virotherapy of colorectal cancer using oncolytic poliovirus and due to her interest in cancer immunotherapy she joined UTS school of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Dr Warkiani. Currently, she is engaged in developing Metal Organic Framework as a novel model for improving the sensitivity of biological assays, Isolat-
-ion of CTC from clinical samples using microfluidic device and exosome separation using microfluidic devices.

Co/joint-Supervisor

Mona Tarek Elsemary (2017-2020) is a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia. She received a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a Master in Microbiology and Immunology at Cairo University/Egypt. She also got another Master in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at King Saud University/ Saudi Arabia. She later worked in Nanotechnology Research at the American University in Cairo/Egypt. She co-published two papers and a book. She is currently working under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin Theirry, Prof. Majid Warkiani, and Associate Prof. Louis Smith in the field of Microfluidic Manufacturing of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells in the therapy of cancers.

Mahsa Asadnia (2018-2021) is a PhD candidate in the school of science and engineering at Macquarie University. She has obtained Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Isfahan University of Technology-Iran and Master of Science degree in Nanotechnology–Nanochemistry from University of Isfahan. She has great experiences on synthesis and characterization of artificial enzymes, nanocompounds, dendrimers and organic materials. She is currently working under the supervision of Dr. Majid Warkiani (UTS), Prof. Mukhopadhyay (MQ), and Dr. Amir Razmjou (UNSW). Her current research interests focus on human Mesenchymal Stem cells, 3D stem cell culture, Microcarriers and Tissue engineering.

Alexey Rzhevskiy (2018-2021) is a medical doctor (MD) graduated from Sechenov University in Moscow in 2015. Then, he moved to Australia to undertake a master degree at Griffith University, investigating microneedles as a technique for drug delivery enhancement in diverse organs and tissues. In March 2018, he started his PhD program at the Macquarie University in the Centre for Nanoscale and Biophotonics. His current research interests are mainly related to the investigation of targeted drug delivery techniques, particularly microneedles, cancer treatment and diagnostics, and broad scope of investigations in the field of urology. He is currently working under supervision of Professor Andrei Zvyagin (MQ) and Dr Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani (UTS).

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.

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’.

Visiting scholars

Lab Alumni (since 2014)

Undergraduates

Anthony Shi (B.Sc.)
Saiful Anuar (B.Sc.)
Shayla Carlin (B.Sc.)
Ashik Kavanakudy (B.Sc.)
Anthony Zada (B.Sc.)
Adam Joffe (B.Sc.)
Moses Lee (B.Sc.)
Ahmad Firdaus Abu Hanipah (B.Sc.)
Ainol basyiruddin ahmad (B.Sc.)
Muhammad Ikhlas (B.Sc.)
Benjamin Goodnow (B.Sc.)
Menglu Liu (B.Sc.)
Akrit Sethi (B.Sc.)
Kenny Ng (B.Sc.)
Steven Vasilescu (B.Sc.)
Nick Rabey (B.Sc.)
Issac Lee (B.Sc.)
Shayan Khorsandi (B.Sc.)
Sabrina Lo (B.Sc.)
Ayesha Syed (B.Sc.)
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)

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.

​Principal Investigator