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Dr Azadeh (Azy) HashemiPostdoctoral Fellow | University of CanterburyDr Azadeh (Azy) Hashemi is a postdoctoral fellow at University of Canterbury. She is originally from Iran where she did her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics and Plasma Engineering. She came to NZ in 2014 to do a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and she graduated in 2018. Since then she has been doing research as a postdoc, working between Electrical Engineering and Biology departments. Her current research focuses on Lab-on-a-chip devices for biological and point-of-care diagnostics, and developing capillary microfluidic devices for wine testing. |
Kidney Scientists Day: Lab on chip (nanotech)
The Nock Lab under A/Prof. Volker Nock at University of Canterbury works on the development and application of microfluidic devices for biological diagnostics. Key focuses within the group are on studying pathogenic hyphal microorganisms, biomolecular interaction analysis, cancer biomechanics, and developing point-of-care diagnostic devices. Currently, a major project is on the development of rapid enzymatic testing devices for the wine industry to provide effective, affordable, and easy-to-use analyses for winemakers. There is potential for these devices to be translated into devices for medical applications for point-of-care diagnostics and screening. One of the potential medical applications for the wider Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) field is kidney-on-a-chip, where organoids, resembling human kidney, allow researchers to model disease and test drug treatments. This is still an unexplored area for our lab but we are interested in expanding our platform to be used in studying, understanding, and developing medical protocols for kidney related diseases.