Advanced Porous Biomaterials Lab at the University of New South Wales (UNSW)
Dr. Tushar Kumeria is a materials scientist with extensive experience in utilising porous materials for biomedical applications. He is a group leader of the Advanced Porous Biomaterials Lab (PoreBiomat) in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW-Sydney), Australia. He is currently the Vice President of the Australian chapter of the Controlled Release Society. He has received multiple highly prestigious fellowships and awards including the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Fellowship (ECF), UQ Development and ECR award, Princes Alexandra Hospital ECR of the year (2019), and many others. His innovative porous materials research spans many areas of application such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, biosensing, and agricultural and veterinary use. His research is funded by NHMRC, Australian Research Council, United States-Dept. of Defence, Ramaciotti Foundation, and many other competitive grant organisations and his group currently comprise 6 PhD students, 5 Master’s thesis students, 1 M.Phil student, and 3 research assistants/postdocs.
PoreBiomat Group at UNSW-Sydney.
The PoreBiomat group has recently developed a thermo-responsive intranasal formulation to treat sinus-related diseases. These diseases impose a substantial burden on the healthcare system and economy and in many cases require surgeries. The novel porous materials-based formulation is intended for the all-around treatment and can be applied in the post-surgery hospital or home-care settings. The formulation exists as a liquid at storage temperature and forms a gel-like layer once sprayed in the nasal cavity, which is typically around 30-32 °C. This enables longer residence time of the formulation in the nasal cavity and thus a prolonged relief. The key innovation of the formulation is the porous carrier, which is embedded in the thermo-responsive hydrogel and enables the incorporation of even some of the most lipophilic drugs in the aqueous hydrogel. Incorporation of lipophilic drugs into an aqueous hydrogel is extremely challenging and leads to the crystallisation of the drug which can affect drug release and tissue uptake as a result. The novel formulation was tested in vitro and the drug uptake into human nasal tissue explants was also assessed. These tests showcased the excellent lipophilic drug incorporation capabilities of the porous materials-based thermo-responsive formulation from the PoreBiomat group. The systems are now being investigated for their in vivo drug delivery efficacy in relevant nasal inflammation models. These will guide the clinical testing and translation and bring the novel thermo-responsive porous materials-based hydrogel from the lab to the clinic.
Another interest of the PoreBiomat group lies in the area of intelligent implants and scaffolds that are capable of detecting disease states and administering local therapy. The team has published top-tier journal articles in this area in the last couple of years including recent work in Biofabrication demonstrating their porous nanofibrous scaffolds can be deposited directly onto living cells and another article in Advanced Functional Materials that showcased that their nanofibers could be sprayed onto any kind of surface to enable detection of target analyte through colour change. The PoreBiomat team is now combining these two ideas to develop nanofibrous scaffolds that can be used as drug-eluding scaffolds for direct deposition onto a disease site, which are capable of real-time and remote monitoring of the scaffold or disease condition.
Kumeria is the co-lead of the Industry and Commercialisation Committee of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine at UNSW-Sydney as a result of his ongoing industry collaborations and network. He is also heavily involved in promoting STEMM education amongst high-school students to train the next generation of biomaterials scientists. In 2023, his lab hosted 5 high-school students from across the New South Wales state in Australia as part of a SciX programme at UNSW. The students spent a week with the PoreBiomat group and learnt about the unique properties of porous materials that make them ideal for drug delivery and biosensing applications. Being a materials engineer working at the interface of biology and materials science, Kumeria is a strong advocate of cross-disciplinary research and believes it as a way to bring innovative solutions to some of the biggest challenges faced by humanity.
Relevant references:
Singh et al (2022). Journal of Nanosctructure in Chemistry.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40097-022-00501-5
Bakshi et al (2022). Advanced Functional Materials, 32 (16), 2103496. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202103496
McKenna et al (2023). Biofabrication, 15 (2), 025003.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/aca5b7
Raza et al (2022). Materials Today Advances, 13, 100210.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtadv.2022.100210
Raza et al (2021). Acta Biomaterialia, 126, 277-290.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2021.03.042
Chaudhary et al (2019). Biomaterials Science, 7: 5002-5015.
https://doi.org/10.1039/C9BM00822E
Xu et al (2022). Drug Delivery and Translational Research, 12, 676-694.
