News
CNG members score best presentation awards
August 2026
Congratulations to CNG members on their recent presentation awards at the 2026 International Conference on Materials Innovation held on 13–15 August in Brisbane.
CNG postdoc Dr Yuang Gu won the Early Career Researcher Lecture Award for his talk entitled Metal–Phenolic Network Nanoparticles for Organ-Selective Delivery.
Honorary CNG PhD student Haofu Liu received the Best HDR Student Presentation Award for his talk entitled Silane-Enabled Metal–Phenolic Networks with Tunable Wettability. Haofu is pursuing a PhD degree in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne under the joint supervision of Prof. Deli Chen and CNG research fellow Dr Omid Mazaheri.
CNG review article in Nature Reviews Chemistry featured on front cover
July 2026
A collaborative review article between CNG and Prof. Shuaijun Pan and his team (Hunan University) has been highlighted on the front cover Nature Reviews Chemistry. The review entitled “Fluorine-Free Super-Repellency to Water and Organic Liquids” provides a timely and comprehensive account of recent advances in fluorine-free super-repellency. Specifically, the review details design strategies based on anisotropic microstructures, hierarchical roughness, and non-fluorinated surface chemistries, alongside theoretical frameworks that correlate structure, interfacial energies, and wetting dynamics. Emerging applications in diverse fields—from self-cleaning coatings to anti-icing and biomedical materials—are outlined, as well as key challenges and future research opportunities.
By bridging theory, materials design, and practical applications, this review aims to inspire innovation toward the development of environmentally friendly, scalable and multifunctional super-repellent technologies.
Frank Caruso participates in International Research Training Group in Multidimensional Materials
July 2026
International collaboration between Germany and Australia receives research funding boost from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). Through the establishment of International Research Training Groups—that will fund joint PhD projects over the next five years—this program will support the training of the next generation of researchers to deliver impactful research in biomaterials and cultural contexts.
Prof. Frank Caruso is part of the Multidimensional Materials [MB]2 International Research Training Group (IRTG), which is led by Prof. Thomas Scheibel (University of Bayreuth) and Prof. Andrea O’Connor (University of Melbourne) in partnership with Monash University and Swinburne University of Technology.
[MB]2 brings together research experts from chemistry, physics, cell biology, materials science and medical engineering to develop new biomaterials, such as 3D-printed human tissues, and new ways of creating these materials.
For further details, visit [MB]2 on available PhD projects and how to apply.
CNG postdoc scores Best Postdoctoral Presentation Award
June 2026
Congratulations to CNG postdoc Dr Jingqu Chen on winning the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 16th International Nanomedicine Conference held on 22–24 June 2026 in Sydney. Jingqu’s talk was entitled Bioactive Metal–Organic Nanoparticles: A Versatile Platform for Therapeutic Delivery.
CNG article in Advanced Materials highlighted on inside front cover
January 2026
A collaborative article has been highlighted on the inside front cover of Advanced Materials. This article entitled “Polyphenol-Mediated Engineering of Lipid Nanoparticles with Crystalline Mesophases” presents a one-step assembly strategy for engineering a new class of nonlamellar lipid nanoparticles. Through simply varying the assembly building blocks, the polyphenol-mediated strategy enables the modulation of the nonlamellar structures, resulting in tuneable sizes (90‒420 nm), lattice parameters (106‒151Å), and different nanostructures (multilamellar and hexagonal). Such flexibility allows the design delivery systems for different classes of therapeutic molecules, thereby offering opportunities to tailor such materials to different delivery needs.
This collaborative study was conducted by CNG, the Nanomedicine and Gene Therapeutics Laboratory (headed by Dr. Yi (David) Ju) at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute and La Trobe University, and colleagues from RMIT University.