(Invited Talk) ACRF Image X Institute, The University of Sydney – 29th of June, 2021

In the not too distant future, a novel personalised medicine using nanomedicines will enter the clinical study in patients with glioblastoma. In this presentation I will discuss the steps we have made in nanomaterial development, personalised antibody targeting, comparative oncology, and clinically translatable molecular imaging using quantitative and simultaneous PET-MRI to determine the optimal therapeutic window for patients with recurrent glioblastoma (Publication Link). I will also discuss how we have used this advancement to study new therapeutic options for the treatment of brain cancers with nanomedicines.

(Invited Talk) Progress & Research in Medical Physics (PRIMPS32): Queensland Branch of the Australasian College of Physical Scientists & Engineers in Medicine Annual Meeting – 6th of May, 2021

An overview was given on the new ACRF Facility for Targeted Radiometals in Cancer (AFTRiC) and research opportunities in the area of preclinical alpha radiometals research at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, UQ.

(Invited Talk) RADICAL 2020, Brisbane, QLD, Australia – 8th of February 2020.

An overview of the precision nanotheranostic platform we have developed with a hyperbranched polymeric core and precision custom targeting system and its subsequent applications in preclinical and clinical studies is discussed. In particular how we are using comparative oncology with companion animals to expedite the timeline for new treatments for brain and other cancers.

(Invited Talk) Brisbane Cancer Conference – 27th of November 2020.

In this talk an overview of the clinical translation of personalised nanomedicines for the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma will be discussed.

(Invited Talk) Perkin Elmer Webinar Series. 30^th of June, 2020

An overview was given on the use of molecular imaging to understand the fundamental properties of nanomedicines for their application in drug delivery. In particular how optical imaging is used effectively with other imaging modalities such as PET, CT, and MRI to answer questions that aid in the development of smarter nanomedicines. In this talk a range of projects from the Thurecht Group were discussed.

(Invited Talk) Workshop on Radiobiology, Omics and Microdosimetry of Systemic and Targeted Radiotherapies – Oak Ridge National Labs, Oak Ridge, TN, USA. 24^th of July, 2019.

In the Thurecht group, we are interested in the biologically inspired design of finely tuned nanomaterials for the diagnosis and treatment of various cancers and diseased tissues.  By applying modern imagining modalities of fluorescence, PET, CT, MRI, and photoacoustics we have developed a range of nanomedicines with modular targeting, site-selective drug delivery, and probes that image biological processes in addition to giving biodistribution and accumulation information.  We are now translating these preclinical results up the pipeline from rodents to companion animals and applying comparative oncology methodologies to translate these cutting-edge theranostics into the clinical space.

(Invited Lecture) NZ Controlled Release Society Workshop on Improving Bioavailabliity – University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. 21st of November, 2019.

In this workshop we will work as a collective group (and sometimes in breakout teams) to generate a list of questions that need to be addressed in order to establish a method for diagnosing and monitoring response to treatment of a brain tumour. During the process of developing this method, we will learn about the major imaging techniques available and the types of information that can be obtained from the imaging techniques.  We will also apply this knowledge to work as a team to develop experiments to determine the therapeutic efficacy of the treatment.

(Invited Talk) The Perkin Elmer Sydney Symposium on Cell Biology, Immunology, Cancer and Drug Discovery – University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia. 6^th of August, 2019.

An overview was given on the use of molecular imaging to understand the fundamental properties of nanomedicines for their application in drug delivery. A range of projects from the Thurecht Group were discussed.

(Invited Talk) The Perkin Elmer Melbourne Symposium on Cell Biology, Immunology, Cancer and Drug Discovery – The Florey Institute, Parkville, VIC, Australia. 5^th of August, 2019

An overview was given on the use of molecular imaging to understand the fundamental properties of nanomedicines for their application in drug delivery. A range of projects from the Thurecht Group were discussed.

(Invited Talk) Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy (ASMIRT) QLD Branch Meeting, QLD, Australia, 29^th of May, 2018.

An overview of the various projects in the Thurecht Group to an audience of radiologists and medical imaging specialists as part of their annual branch meeting.

(Invited Talk) Singapore Bioimaging Consortium & UQ Centre for Advanced Imaging 4^th Annual Symposium, Singapore, 1^st-3^rd of August, 2018.

A formal abstract was not written for this presentation, but the work is of the same topic as another invited talk, for which the abstract is pasted below:

Nanomaterials come in a plethora of designs, shapes, chemical formulations, sizes, and ionic forms and can be readily tuned to surpass many of the biological barriers within the body, but have had limited success in surpassing the final frontier of barriers: the blood-brain barrier (BBB). While their size is a significant advantage of nanoparticles for their delivery to solid tumour masses, it is also their Achilles’ heel for crossing the BBB. A major area of interest for nanoparticle therapeutics is the delivery to glioblastoma (GBM), as it is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Herein we report the use of simultaneous PET-MRI to develop a toolkit for monitoring tumour progression and its effect on BBB integrity of a spontaneous transgenic glioma model1,2, for the purpose of establishing when the BBB is compromised enough for nanoparticles to cross. A series of T1, T2, and dynamic contrast enhanced MRI images along with simultaneous PET of 18FDOPA were used to devise a set of in vivo imaging markers that could establish tumour volume and a measure of BBB integrity. PET was again used to analyse the ability of a 64Cu labelled bispecific antibody targeted hyperbranched polymer (HBP) 3 cross the BBB at different stages of GBM progression. As expected, larger tumour volumes and a higher degree of leaky vasculature correlate with increased BBB permeability by the HBP. This measure can be applied in the future to different sized nanoparticles and other materials to enable better development of BBB-penetrating nanocarriers.

(Invited Talk) MSOT Symposium at 10^th World Molecular Imaging Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. 12^th of September, 2017.

An overview of how molecular imaging is used to develop nanomedicines in the Thurecht Group was given, as well as current projects and future outlooks towards the use of photoacoustics in this pursuit.

(Invited Talk) International Nanomedicine Conference – Coogee, New South Wales, Australia. 3^rd of July, 2017.

Nanomaterials come in a plethora of designs, shapes, chemical formulations, sizes, and ionic forms and can be readily tuned to surpass many of the biological barriers within the body, but have had limited success in surpassing the final frontier of barriers: the blood-brain barrier (BBB). While their size is a significant advantage of nanoparticles for their delivery to solid tumour masses, it is also their Achilles’ heel for crossing the BBB. A major area of interest for nanoparticle therapeutics is the delivery to glioblastoma (GBM), as it is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Herein we report the use of simultaneous PET-MRI to develop a toolkit for monitoring tumour progression and its effect on BBB integrity of a spontaneous transgenic glioma model1,2, for the purpose of establishing when the BBB is compromised enough for nanoparticles to cross. A series of T1, T2, and dynamic contrast enhanced MRI images along with simultaneous PET of 18FDOPA were used to devise a set of in vivo imaging markers that could establish tumour volume and a measure of BBB integrity. PET was again used to analyse the ability of a 64Cu labelled bispecific antibody targeted hyperbranched polymer (HBP) 3 cross the BBB at different stages of GBM progression. As expected, larger tumour volumes and a higher degree of leaky vasculature correlate with increased BBB permeability by the HBP. This measure can be applied in the future to different sized nanoparticles and other materials to enable better development of BBB-penetrating nanocarriers.

(Invited Lecture) Crossing Biological Barriers Workshop, Australian Controlled Release Society – Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

A 40 minute lecture was given on the theory and application of delivering nanomaterials to a tumour and how they behave in the tumour microenvironment.