Nasim Kiaie

Nasim received her B.Sc in Biomaterials in 2012 followed by an M.Sc. in Tissue Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnique), Iran, in 2014. During her studies she mainly focused on controlled release of proteins from chitosan nanoparticles. Then she worked as a researcher at Tehran Heart Centre (THC) to develop targeted drug delivery systems and tissue engineering scaffolds for the treatment of heart failure and myocardial infarction. Her works led to publication of several articles and winning the Elite Talent of the Year Award from National Elites Foundation of Iran in 2017. 

She joined the Frith lab at Monash University as a PhD student in 2021 to study how mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) perceive and respond to extracellular cues. Utilizing microfabrication tools, she is creating engineered micro and nanotopographies on the cell culture substrates to develop a fundamental understanding of how these topographical cues can trigger cell behavior. Expanding high-quality stem cells, differentiating cells into a desired mature cell type for tissue regeneration, or reprogramming cells would be some potential applications and aims of these studies.