Speaker Profile

Associate Professor Mia Woodruff leads the Biomaterials and Tissue Morphology Group at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, QUT. Mia’s exciting vision is of a future where the fabrication of patient-specific replacement tissue and organs is safe, cost-effective and routine. This dream drives her fascinating research to advance the high-tech sciences of tissue engineering and biofabrication.

3D printing is currently taking the world by storm, with the ability to print anything from houses in China to the latest catwalk fashion trends in Paris. Biofabrication applies 3D printing techniques using biological materials to create customised living 3D tissues and is poised to revolutionise the regenerative medicine industry. Developing this technology demands highly collaborative and interdisciplinary teams from many fields; biologists, engineers, clinicians, materials scientists and mathematicians. By working together, complex challenges can be solved and the routine 3D printing of anatomically precise replacement body parts, delivered in the operating theatre, can one day become a reality, enabling a cost effective, on-the-spot solution to tissue loss.