Associate Professor Arnold Ju received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, USA. In 2014, he joined the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Monash University, Melbourne as a junior postdoc; and relocated in 2015 to Sydney, to join the Heart Research Institute. In early 2020, Dr Ju joined the University of Sydney (USYD)’s new BME school as a senior lecturer and started up the Mechanobiology and Biomechanics Laboratory (MBL). A/Prof Ju currently holds an Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship, working at the interface between mechanical engineering and mechanobiology. His team has pioneered multiple biomechanical nanotools, including blood clot-on-chip microfluidic devices (Nature Materials 2019), single-cell biomembrane force probes (Nature Communications 2018), and 4-D haemodynamic modelling (Nature 2021). Recently, he was awarded the prestigious mid-career Snow Fellowship. His vision is to build novel platforms that integrate advanced biomanufacturing, high-throughput biomechanical manipulation, and artificial intelligence for biobank data processing. His track record spans developing, characterising, and evaluating innovations of 3D organoids and organ-on-chips, mechanobiology, imaging probes and biosensors, bio-nanotechnology, and image-based deep learning. These large facilities should provide significant benefits to interdisciplinary research in biofabrication, biomechanics and point-of-care microtechnologies.

Freda Passam is a clinical academic haematologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Central Clinical School of the University of Sydney. In the hospital, she manages patients with bleeding and thrombotic disorders. In the lab, she leads a comprehensive bench-to-bedside haematology and thrombosis research program at the Charles Perkins Centre. Her research has two main directions: 1. Basic research of new pathways in thrombosis for the identification of novel platelet targets to prevent cardiovascular disease, with a focus on diabetes, and 2. Translational research of immune thrombosis for the development of novel platforms for thrombosis assays, utilizing Microfluidic technology.

Dr Philip Choi, BA BSc(Med) MBBS PhD FRACP FRCPA, is a Senior Staff Specialist in Haematology at The Canberra Hospital, Clinical Director of the National Platelet Research and Referral Centre, Principal Editor of Platelets, honorary Senior Lecturer at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, and former co-chair of the Platelet Immunology Subcommittee of the ISTH. His research interests in classical haematology include improving the subclassification of ITP, management of HIT, and treatment of warm AIHA. His work is supported by an ACT Health Research and Innovation Fund grant. He is also current Treasurer of the Thrombosis and Haemostasis Society of Australia and New Zealand, advisory board member for ITP Australia and the National Blood Authority. He serves on advisory boards and speaker bureaus for industry including Sobi, Novartis, Janssen and Nuvig.