Daniel obtained his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering in 2012, his Masters of Biomedical Engineering in 2014 and his PhD in 2020, all from the University of Technology Sydney. His PhD was on the use of biofuel cells for powering implanted medical devices. Whilst he originally studied Electrical Engineering, he has since worked in several areas including electronics, mechanical engineering, radioastronomy, chemical synthesis, bioelectrochemistry, microbiology and recently cell therapy and manufacturing.

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His research interests include iPSC based cell therapy, cell manufacturing and medical devices. He is currently working on Magnetic Resonance Relaxometry and Raman spectroscopy as label free tools for assessing quality and safety of iPS and spinal cord progenitor cells in cell therapy and manufacturing. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) are famously useful in cell therapy for their ability to turn into any cell type within the body (pluripotency). Likewise, in cell manufacturing, iPSCs are significant for their ability to grow perpetually(self-renewing).

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But when iPSCs grow passage to passage, they are known to be sensitive and heterogenous such that even something as simple as vibration can affect them. On one hand, this is a quality issue as iPSCs and their progeny are variable. On the other hand, this is a safety issue. If these variable cells were implanted, it is known that tumours could be formed.

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This project seeks to use magnetic resonance of paramagnetic ions within cells to identify high quality iPSCs, whilst Raman is used to identify residual iPSCs within spinal cord progenitor cells, for safety checks.