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I am a Research Fellow and Leader in Pain Relief Innovation at AIBN, UQ. My research interests sit at the interface of drug delivery and the pain field. My overarching research goal is to improve the quality of day to day life of patients suffering from chronic pain, by applying nanotechnology to the development of novel highly effective pain-killer products for improving chronic pain management. I am looking for highly motivated postgraduate students.

I also enjoy volunteering within the academic community, most notably as Head of the SBMS ECR Committee and Treasurer for The Queensland Chinese Association of Scientists and Engineers (QCASE). I am currently serving as guest editor of Pain Research and Management.and JoVE Methods Collection.

Research Interests

My research is focusing on nano-based drug formulation and development to improve chronic pain management. I have a broad and unique background in both pharmacology and drug delivery systems, with specific expertise in the development of novel drug products and testing their analgesic efficacy and safety including pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies. To date, I have established five different techniques to produce painkiller–loaded nanoparticles and nanofibers aimed at improving pain relief for patients where currently available pain-killers either lack efficacy or produce dose-limiting side-effects. For example, there is a small and very potent peptide that has been on the market as a chemical for over 10 years but which cannot be used as a therapeutic due to its short half-life and poor oral bioavailability. In the form of my nanoparticles, that peptide has the potential to become an oral treatment for improving pain management in patients whose pain is currently poorly alleviated by clinically used pain-killers. I have significant expertise in the use of rodent pain models to assess novel analgesics, and I have received excellent training in conducting research in accordance with the stringent requirements of the Quality Management System (quality accreditations (GLP and ISO17025) from NATA). Together, my knowledge, skills and experience will facilitate the efficient translation of my research from the bench to the clinic.

The current focus of the lab is on the development of drug-products to solve one of the largest unmet medical needs in the pain field through use of sustainable materials. 1) We are developing multifunctional sutures including biodegradable pain relief sutures. 2) We are developing my innovative novel nanoparticles, which deliver innate-immune targeting peptides for the treatment of cancer and cancer-related pain. We are establishing a platform for the development of safe, effective delivery for other small molecule peptide drugs in general to pave their way to clinical trials. 3) Our research also investigates the role of C5a and C3a, estrogen, etc. in the pathogenesis of chronic pain including neuropathic pain, cancer-related pain, low back pain and OA pain.

We work in collaboration with other leading Australian and international researchers to stay at the forefront of the drug delivery systems field and the pain field. We also provide preclinical evaluation of novel compounds and formulations.

Dr. Mingyuan Lu was awarded her PhD from The University of Queensland in Febuary 2014. She has previously completed a Masters of Engineering (June 2009, Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, China), and a Bachelor of Engineering (June 2007, Materials Science and Engineering, Central south University, China).

Mingyuan has more than 10 years’ experience in research, and during this period she has gained extensive experience with material synthesis, mechanical mechanics, and material characterization including nanoindentation, nanoscratching, atomic force microscopy, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam milling (FIB); additionally,she has experience with structural and compositional analysis techniques (Raman, XRD, EDS, DTA, DSC etc.).

Mingyuan's contributions to the field of mechanical and materials engineering are listed below:

Materials mechanics

• (2015-2016) developed a new and successful FIB-machined micro-cantilever bending technique to study the fracture and interfacial properties of the protective intermetallic coatings on magnesium alloys: this technique can be applied to a wide range of materials, sub-surface structures and multilayered structures. Based on this methodology, they later developed a micro-bridge four-point bending technique. This approach can generate a “stable” interfacial delamination, and thus enables quantitative analysis of interfacial toughness.
• (2011-2014) developed an indentation-based methodology for assessing the interfacial adhesion of bilayer structures, in a joint project that was funded by WIN Semiconductor Co., Taiwan: the methodology developed has been used to test the reliability of SiN-passivated GaAs semiconductor wafer products.

Materials synthesis and processing

• (2015-current) developing a selective laser sintering process for the additive manufacturing of porous and biodegradable scaffolds, made from a biopolymer, for bone tissue engineering: this innovative process can produce scaffolds without the use of an artificial 3D model, and the scaffold has a unique interconnected pore architecture and large surface area making it suitable for bone tissue regeneration applications. The promising outcomes of the preliminary study have elicited strong support from UQ; it has received two generous internal grants (a philanthropic grant for an ECR in the field of engineering, and SEED funding) to enable further study in this field. The scaffolds will shortly be tested in a pre-clinical mouse model (funded by SEEM grant) to study biocompatibility and osteoconductivity.
• (2007-2009) developed high-performance refractory metallic materials using powder metallurgy processes: in this project, they discovered the effect of trace TiC, ZrC Carbide nanoparticles on the mechanical properties, sintering behaviour and microstructure of molybdenum alloys.