Find an expert

Breast and Endocrine Surgeon, Mater Hospitals South Brisbane.

Previous Fellowships at University of Nottingham(UK) and Mayo Clinic (USA)

Chairman, Foundation for Breast Cancer Care

Senior Surgeon Breast Screen Qld Metro south Brisbane

Dr Ruirui Qiao is a Group Leader and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. She received her BSc (2005) and MSc (2007) in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Peking University and completed her PhD in Physical Chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2014. Prior to joining UQ, she held academic appointments at CAS (Assistant Professor 2009–2015, Tenured Associate Professor 2016–2017) and served as a Project Co-Leader at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology (CBNS), Monash University.

At AIBN, Dr Qiao leads a multidisciplinary research program that integrates nanotechnology, polymer science, and advanced manufacturing to create functional nanohybrids, 3D/4D printed smart biomaterials, and bioinspired soft robotics for biomedical applications. A key area of her work involves microfluidic droplet-based platforms for the scalable fabrication of microgels, droplet-engineered organoids, and cell-laden constructs, enabling more physiologically relevant models for disease research and therapeutic testing. Her contributions have advanced the design of next-generation materials and devices with controllable architecture, responsiveness, and translational potential.

Dr Qiao has made substantial contributions across both materials science and biomedical engineering, particularly in the development of organic/inorganic nanocomosites for nanomedicine and 3D/4D printing soft materials. Her work also extends to impactful bioapplications, including molecular imaging and targeted drug delivery. She has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals such as Science, Nature Communications, ACS Nano, Chemistry of Materials, Advanced Materials, and Polymer Chemistry, accumulating more than 8,300 citations (H-index = 49).

Her current research focuses on the design and fabrication of advanced polymer/inorganic hybrid materials, leveraging state-of-the-art techniques including nanoparticle synthesis, polymer chemistry, PET-RAFT polymerisation, and 3D/4D printing technologies. Her group applies these materials in a wide range of biomedical applications, such as disease diagnosis, drug and gene delivery, tissue engineering, antibacterial coatings, and soft robotics. Dr Qiao's excellence has been recognised through prestigious awards, including an NHMRC Investigator Grant (2020) and the UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award (2021).

She is currently serving in Editorial Board and Associate Editor of Science Advances (AAAS), Journal of Nanobiotechnology (BMC, Part of Spring Nature), Topic Editor of ACS Polymer Science&Technology and Guest Editors of Biosensors and Frontier in Pharmacology.

Dr Qiao is looking for highly motivated Ph.D. students, and highly competitive full scholarship can be provided. The University of Queensland ranks in the top 50 as measured by the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. The University also ranks 45 in the QS World University Rankings, 52 in the US News Best Global Universities Rankings, 60 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and 55 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

My research focuses on data science methods, including theory and application for various real-world scenarios, such as recommender systems, social network, urban computing, engineering, law, health etc. I am particularly interested into graph neural networks, large language models (LLMs, MLLMs), etc.

• I am actively looking for PhD students (multiple positions) starting in Year 2026. Please visit: https://ruihongqiu.github.io/recruit-phd/
• I am actively looking for thesis/honours/research/RA students yearly. Please visit: https://ruihongqiu.github.io/recruit-thesis/

Jonathan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Musculoskeletal and Orthopaedic Research at the STARS Education and Research Alliance. “STARS” is the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service specialist public health facility in Brisbane and the “Alliance” is between the University of Queensland (UQ) and Metro North Health in Queensland, Australia. He is also Steering Committee Member of the UQ Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHER).

His vision is to improve the quality of life of people with the most common and disabling types of joint pain. He is passionate about leading research priority setting partnerships and investigating the most effective and safe treatments to support condition management. A key part of this is understanding what works best for whom and why. He has a specialist interest in the clinical and surgical management of joint pain due to osteoarthritis and low back pain. To maximise research impact he also seeks to understand the best ways of getting new knowledge from research to the people who need it most including healthcare practitioners and people with joint pain.

His boundary-spanning physiotherapy career has involved clinical, academic, conjoint, policy and professional body roles. Prior to joining the University of Queensland, he was Research into Practice Adviser at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in the UK and he holds a Visiting Senior Research Fellow position at The University of York, UK.

He has published over 45 peer-reviewed journal articles in top musculoskeletal journals including The Lancet Rheumatology, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, Rheumatology and the British Journal of Sports Medicine. He has lead-supervised three research students to completion (1 PhD, 1 MPhil and 1 Academy of Medical Sciences project student) and has 3 ongoing PhD students. He contributes to national policy (e.g. 2022 UK NICE osteoarthritis guideline committee), is a steering group member of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International Joint Effort Initiative (which seeks to improve the international implementation of evidence based osteoarthritis care) and has held national committee strategy, research and communications officer roles (e.g. for: The Community Rehabilitation Alliance; The British Society of Rheumatology, and; the Council for Allied Health Professions Research). He thrives through collaboration and welcomes approaches from prospective PhD students. He is committed to high quality consumer involvement and improving equity, diversity and belonging in research.

Examples of national and international recognition include:

-Invited advisor to NHS England Obesity Expert Group and report writer of “the impact of weight and weight management on osteoarthritis of the hip and knee” 2021-23.

-Invitations to give international conference plenaries including the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) Epidemiology and Therapy Year in Review in 2021.

-Clinical Research Network West Midlands Research Scholar Fellowships x2 2020-2022

-National Institute of Health Care Research (NIHR) Academic Clinical Lecturer in Physiotherapy 2016-2019

-OARSI Young Investigator Award 2014

Sreekar’s research focuses on using ecological theory to inform conservation decision making. He is interested in a broad range of topics, including spatial conservation planning, evidence-based conservation policy, community assembly rules, extinction synergies, and land-use management. A big question that drives his research is how to address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. His current research is centred around studying the environmental risks associated with mining and mineral processing.

He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Ecology and has spent the past 15 years at universities across Australia, China, Czechia, India and Singapore. Sreekar is an avid birder and enjoys this aspect of his work both professionally and recreationally.

Professor Maria Raciti (Kalkadoon-Thaniquith-Bwgcolman) is a social marketer dedicated to social justice and behaviour change. She co-founded and co-directs the UniSC Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre and co-leads the education and economies theme in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures hosted by the University of Queensland. Maria is a member of the esteemed Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK). Her work is aligned with the United Nations SDG4 (Quality Education), SDG8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and SDG10 (Reduced Inequalities), as well as the National Closing the Gap Targets 6 (Further Education) and 8 (Economic Participation).

Professor Radford leads the Cancer Immunotherapies Group at Mater Research Institute-UQ. Her research interests are focussed on understanding how the human immune system can be trained to recognise and fight cancer for the development of vaccines and immunotherapies.

Professor Radford’s leadership and globally-recognised expertise in the fields of human dendritic cell (DC), immuno-oncology, immunotherapy, cancer vaccines and humanised mice is evidenced by 59 publications in top journals including J Exp Med, Nat Immunol, Immunity and more than 50 invitations to speak. She has attracted >$6 million in funding as a Chief Investigator and >$5 million as a Co-Investigator. She has been recognised by awards including NHMRC CDF2 (2011-2014), Mater Medal for Outstanding Research Contribution 2015, ASI Miller Award 2018, a 2021 Fulbright Future Fellowship and Fellowship of the QLD Academy of Arts and Science.

Professor Radford’s expertise include development and clinical trial of the one of the first vaccines to use human circulating blood conventional DC (cDC) for cancer immunotherapy that was translated to a first-in-human clinical trial for metastatic prostate cancer. Her group was the first to functionally characterise the human cDC1 subset) and propose their potential as next-generation cancer vaccines, a finding described by international leaders as “a needle in the cancer vaccine haystack”. She has pioneered techniques to isolate cDC1s from human tissues, culture them from CD34 progenitors in vitro and in humanised mice in vivo and developed a suite of assays to interrogate their phenotype and function, including priming of human tumour specific immune responses. These have been applied to develop novel cancer vaccines that target human cDC1 in vivo, that are now being translated for commercialisation and clinical trial.

Professor Radford has pioneered the development of innovative models that faithfully replicate the human immune system (humanised mice). These are in high demand globally to enhance research impact and increase the speed and accuracy of immunotherapy drug development in oncology, autoimmunity, inflammatory and infectious disease. She has applied these to wide range of applications including hematopoeisis, cancer immunotherapy and autoimmune disease.

Professor Rae received her PhD in 2007 in the area of reproductive physiology and has been working in the area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander maternal and infant health and chronic disease since that time. She began as the Group Lead for the Indigenous Health Research group at the Mater Research Institute in a role that bridges the Mater, University of QLD and is actively growing partnerships with the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector in QLD. The importance of maternal health for Indigenous communities has been identified as a critical national research priority by Indigenous communities. Her work has had a multidisciplicinary nature and while always focused on the health of Indigneous Australians she has published in areas including pregnancy and birth outcomes, nutrition, psychosocial health, growth and development during infancy, the use of arts in health education to name a few.She has a particular passion for working in partnership to co-design research projects that support improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Her specific focus has primarily been to develop programs that reduce chronic diseases which afflict Aboriginal people more commonly through early detection and diagnosis, health education, and developing a thorough understanding of risk factors that impact on this community. She has mentored her team of staff and students to co-produce and co-disseminate findings from these programs of work and to build research capacity for all team members including those who identify as Indigenous and for those from rural locations of research studies.

Prior to her role at Mater Research, she was the inaugaral Director of the Gomeroi gaaynggal program (2007-2019), which had two major programs of work 1. ArtsHealth for community engagement, health education and health promotion and 2. A Health research program for understanding the development of chronic disease in the Indigenous community through the Gomeroi gaaynggal cohort. Program 1 was successful in transitioning its funding to local Aboriginal community-controlled sector in Tamworth (2019). Prior to its transition, she led a community focussed ArtsHealth program to improve health knowledge, particularly in the areas of social and emotional wellbeing in the community, with the assistance of a team of beginning Indigenous researchers. Over 100,000 hours of community education were delivered through this program. 2. The Gomeroi gaaynggal cohort work has involved the recruitment and retention of a prospective longitudinal cohort of Indigenous women from pregnancy through until the infants are 10 years of age highlighting her expertise in working with Indigenous families during their antenatal and early childhood years. The importance of maternal health for this population is a critical priority to improving the life-long health of the Indigenous communities of Australia.

Delineation of osteal macrophage function in the bone microenvironment: dual roles in bone dynamics and stem cell niches.

Bone and joint diseases are a national and international health and research priority costing the Australian health system over $10 billion annually. The bony skeleton is a dynamic metabolically active tissue that is continuously remodelled and repaired to maintain calcium homeostasis and structural integrity. The microenvironment at the inner surface of long bones (endosteum), including the bone matrix and associated bone lining cells, is crucial to the dynamic processes of bone modelling and remodelling. I have recently characterized 'osteomacs' as a resident tissue macrophage population within bone lining tissues and have shown that they promote bone mineralization in vitro and are necessary for the maintenance of bone forming osteoblasts in vivo. Thus osteomacs are cellular constituents of endosteal niches and play an osteoblast-support function in this microenvironment. We are investigating the unique phenotype and expression profile (mRNA and protein) of osteomacs in order to fully delineate their functional potential in bone dynamics.

Recently it has been shown that the endosteal environment is also essential for the maintenance of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) niches. Osteoblasts need to be present on the bone surface to ensure HSC maintenance in the endosteal niche. Therefore we hypothesised that osteomacs, as a consequence of their presence in the niche and osteoblast support-function, contribute both indirectly and directly to the generation of this stem cell nursery. We have shown that loss of osteomacs and subsequently osteoblasts occurs during G-CSF induced HSC mobilization. Importantly, in vivo depletion of osteomacs (using transgenic Mafia mice) also causes marked egress of HSC from bone marrow into the blood and spleen. These data provide compelling support that osteomacs are required for maintenance of osteoblast bone forming surfaces and provide caretaker support for the endosteal stem cell niches.

My research team has a number of projects that aim to understand the cellular architecture of the endosteal stem cell niches and the role of osteomacs in this environment. This is an essential step toward enhancing clinical HSC mobilization options in order to improve bone marrow transplantation outcomes in multiple myeloma and lymphoma and also ensuring that the promise of MSC therapy is translated into a clinical reality.