Staff profile

Dr Ben Muir is manager of the Rapid Automated Materials & Processing centre and leads a number of research projects. In this role he utilizes robotic synthesis and characterization equipment to rapidly speed up R&D outcomes in materials research used by CSIRO's industry partners. He conducts collaborative research with a number of companies and organisations including the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Melbourne University (HFI). He employs the use of High Throughput materials synthesis and screening techniques in his job routinely. He collaborates with a number of academic researchers and holds positions on a number of organizing committees of conferences and workshops both in Melbourne and interstate. His work has focused on the development of High throughput research techniques for materials discovery with a number of applications including therapeutic self assembled nanoparticles for drug delivery applications. Primarily his work involves the use of novel polymerisation methods, self assembly techniques, surface coating and colloidal emulsion technologies.

He has published in high impact journals such as Advanced Materials and he has a h-index of 20. He has been an invited and plenary speaker at a number of international and local conferences. His career achievements to date include a number of invention disclosures and patents. Of particular note was his discovery of a novel antibody binding technology and US Patent of which he is the principal inventor. The technology involves the chemical modification of various polymer substrates for the controlled/orientated binding of proteins. He discovered and helped develop the biotechnology company, “Anteo Diagnostics” legacy product, ‘Mix & Go’™ technologies now used in antibody-material conjugate products and sold globally. He has won awards (including the ASB Young Investigator Award and the RACI’s Treloar Prize) and most recently the CSIRO Julius Career Award. He has established successful collaborative research projects with a number of research Institutions (Australian Synchrotron, ANSTO, Monash/Melbourne/Swinburne/Latrobe University/East China Normal Universities). This includes co-supervision of 7 PhD candidates and 3 postdoctoral research fellows.