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RSNSW Liversidge Lecture

20 February 2020
6.00pm – 8.00pm AEDT
The Galleries, John Niland Scientia Building
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Headshot of Martina Stenzel


Professor Martina Stenzel was awarded the 2018 Liversidge Lecture by the Royal Society of New South Wales with a recommendation from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute NSW Branch. Join us as she gives her lecture at this event.

About the Liversidge Lecture

The Liversidge Lecture is awarded at intervals of two years for the purpose of encouragement of research in Chemistry. It was established under the terms of a bequest to the Society by Professor Archibald Liversidge MA LLD FRS, who was Professor of Chemistry in the University of Sydney from 1874 to 1907 and was one of the Council members who sponsored the Act of Incorporation of the RSNSW in 1881.

The journey from simple polymers to nano-footballs: opportunities for better cancer treatment

Professor Stenzel will take the audience on a journey from simple polymers that are widely used for commodity polymers to highly complex nanoparticles that have shapes of footballs, pancakes and bamboo-sticks. These nanoparticle can now be filled with anti-cancer drugs to facilitate the delivery of therapeutic goods into cancer cells. Our main purpose is to understand how the shape and size of these nanoparticle affect the interaction with healthy and cancerous cells.

About Professor Martina Stenzel

Professor Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany. She started as a postdoctoral fellow at UNSW in 1999 and is now a full Professor in the school of chemistry as well as co-director of the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) and the ARC training center for chemical industries.

Martina’s research interest is focused on the synthesis of functional nanoparticles for drug delivery applications. She is interested in exploring the relationship between the structure of the underpinning polymers and the resulting nanoparticle shape and size, which will ultimately influence the biological activity. Martina Stenzel published more than 300 peer reviewed papers on polymer and nanoparticle design.

She is scientific editor of Materials Horizons and serves currently on a range of editorial boards. She received a range of awards including the 2011 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize of the Australian Academy of Science. Martina Stenzel is currently chairing the National Chemistry Committee of the Australian Academy of Science and she is also a Fellow of the Academy.