Research Fellow
University of South Australia
Functional nanoparticles and biosensing
PhD (McGill University, 2004), M.Sc.A, B.Sc.A
Dr. Benjamin Thierry was educated in France, obtaining an Engineering degree in Materials Sciences at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG). He then moved to Montreal to complete his Masters at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. Benjamin did his PhD in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at McGill University. His work involved the development of new strategies for revascularization procedures based on surface modification of endovascular devices. Dr. Thierry joined The Ian Wark Research Institute in May 2004.
In the last 3 years, he has undertaken independent research of high quality and high impact in the area of nanomedicine, the medical application of nanotechnology. Dr. Thierry has published to date 28 peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters, and his work has been cited 430 times. He has won over $3.4 Million in research project funding.
Although many nanotechnology-based diagnostic and therapeutic strategies have been successful in vitro, implementation in vivo has often proven inefficient; To fully benefit from the outstanding properties of nanomaterials, an improved understanding of their structure-activity relationship in biological systems is required.
To this end, Dr Thierry is currently focussing on three research areas.
First, he is interested in the “green synthesis” of novel functional
nanoparticles and their integration within hybrid nanostructures with
multimodal diagnostic and therapeutic activities. The second area involves
the control of bio-interfaces at the nanoscale towards the improved
targeting of nanoparticles to pathological tissues. Successful
collaborations with the RAH and the Prince of Wales Hospital have been
established to design an advanced nanoprobe for the detection of
intratumoral apoptosis and prostate cancer respectively. Successful outcomes
would be highly significant and could spare radical therapy to patients. The
third component of his research program aims at designing solid state
capture systems able to provide fast and reliable detection of cancer cells
present in the blood, which aim to better predict cancer outcomes.
Thierry B*. Drug Nanocarriers and Functional Nanoparticles: Applications in Cancer Therapy. Current Drug Delivery (Invited review). (NA) (In Press)
Thierry B.*, Al-Ejeh F., Brown M., Majewski P., Griesser H.J. Immunotargeting of advanced functional nanostructures for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Advanced Materials 21, 541-545 (2009) (A*, IF 8.2)
Thierry B.*, Ng J., Krieg T., Griesser H.J. A Robust Procedure for the Functionalization of Gold Nanorods and Noble Metal Nanoparticles. Chemical Communication 13, 1724-1726 (2009) (A, IF 5.1)
Thierry B.*, Zimmer L., McNiven S., Finnie K., Barbé C., Griesser H.J. Design of a new stealth drug delivery system: Electrostatic self-assembly of PEG copolymers onto silica nanoparticles. Langmuir, 24(15) 8143-8150 (2008) (A*, IF 4.0)
Thierry B., Kujawa P., Tkacyk C, Winnik F.M., Bilodeau L., Tabrizian M. Novel Drug Delivery Platform through Combined Prodrug Approach and Self-Assembled Multilayers, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127(6) 1626-1627 (2005) (A*, IF 7.9)