Kris Kilian
- PhD
- Scientia Fellow and Co-director of the ACN
- School of Chemistry and School of Materials Science and Engineering
- University of New South Wales
- k.kilian@unsw.edu.au | @KrisKilian | Google Scholar
Professor Kris Kilian received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Washington in 1999 and 2003 respectively, and his PhD in Chemistry at the University of New South Wales in 2007. Kris was a NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago (2008-2010), Assistant Professor (2011-2017) and Associate Professor (2017-2018) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining UNSW Sydney in 2018. Kris is a recipient of the Cornforth Medal from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (2008), the NIH Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award (2008), the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award (2015), a Young Innovator of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (2017), the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2018), the Deans award for Excellence in Research (2020) and a Eureka Prize Finalist for Innovative Use of Technology (2023). His research interests include the design and development of model extracellular matrices and dynamic biomaterials for cell and tissue engineering.
Kris is currently Professor, co-Director of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, Theme Lead of the Biomedical & Health Theme in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and full member of the Adult Cancer Program. He is Associate Editor of Scientific Reports and the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A.
Research Interests
- My group is interested in how the chemistry of materials influence the behaviour of mammalian cells. Inspired by biological materials, we integrate nano- and micro- fabrication techniques with “hard” and “soft” materials to mimic the physical and chemical properties of the cell and tissue microenvironment. Much of our work is motivated by a dynamic model of the microenvironment where the interplay between chemical cues (extracellular matrix composition), physical cues (geometry, mechanics and topography) and biological cues (paracrine and juxtacrine signals) guides mechanochemical signalling to influence cellular identity, fate and function. Our broad aims are to:
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- 1) Develop synthetic model systems to address fundamental questions in cell biology.
- 2) Use the output from 1 to design clinically relevant biomaterials that direct a functional outcome (e.g., cell differentiation and de-differentiation)
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- Our work is necessarily interdisciplinary; trainees will gain practical experience in materials chemistry, fabrication (bioprinting, lithography), and characterization (SEM, XPS, etc.) Specific programs ongoing in our laboratory include:
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- Mechanochemistry in hydrogels
- Dynamic soft materials
- High-throughput biomaterials discovery
- Nano- and Micro-engineered materials
- Model tumour microenvironments
- Cell and tissue engineering
Educations
Positions
Honors & Awards
Kris Kilian's career accolades