Lars Esser

Area of research:

Drug delivery, diagnostics, theranostics, nanomedicine

Research project details:

I am developing new nanomedicine strategies to diagnose and treat brain cancers. Most anti-cancer drugs cannot reach the brain tumour due to the presence of the blood-brain barrier, therefore we use nanoparticles that can act as a Trojan horse to cross this barrier and deliver drugs to the brain. Moreover, we are also exploring an image-guided focused ultrasound system that can selectively permeate the blood-brain barrier, potentially enabling nanoparticles to get to the brain too. These nanoparticles are also labelled with radioisotopes so we can monitor the delivery to the brain using medical imaging techniques.

Location:

Manufacturing, Clayton

My expectations from a mentoring partnership:

I would like to have guidance in the clinical translation/manufacturing of pharmaceuticals/nanoparticles or medical instruments. I am very interested in this area and it would be great to learn more about it and apply it in career.

It would be great to have a meeting every couple of months, preferably in person if possible.

My general interests:

I’m originally from the Netherlands, where I did a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. After a trip-around-the world I decided to do a PhD in Australia, and I have lived here since. I did my PhD at Monash University in Pharmaceutical Sciences and since 2018 I work as a Postdoc at CSIRO Manufacturing. I always enjoy learning new things and I try to make most out of each opportunity.

Twitter: @Lars_Esser
Linkedin: lesser