Dr Andrea O'Connor

B.E. (Chem, Hons), University of Melbourne, Australia, 1990
PhD, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1995

Senior Lecturer

email:
Telephone: (61) 3 8344 8962
Fax: (61) 3 8344 4153

Room 326, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Building 1

Current Research Activities

• Nano and Biomolecular Engineering
  • Tissue Engineering
  • Nanostructured Materials
• Bioprocess Engineering
  • Separations Technology

Member of the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre

Andrea O’Connor's research interests focus on advanced materials for tissue engineering and downstream processing for biotechnology. Nano- through to macro-porous materials with tailored physical and chemical properties are created and optimized as scaffolds for tissue engineering, media for chromatography, biosorption and electrophoresis. Scale-up of adsorption and membrane processes for the food and pharmaceutical industries is also studied.

Professional Affiliations

• Corporate Member, Institution of Chemical Engineers
• Member of the International Mesostructured Material Association
• Member of the International Zeolite Association
• Member of the Australian Society for Biomaterials

Honours/Awards

• Selby Research Award, 2001
• Science and Technology Agency of Japan Fellowship, 1999
• Fulbright Occasional Lecturer, 1996
• Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995-96

Recent Publications

1. S. Boskovic, A.J. Hill, T.W. Turney, M.L. Gee, G.W. Stevens,A. J. O’Connor, “Probing the Microporous Nature of Hierarchically Templated Mesoporous Silica Via Positron Annhilation Spectroscopy” Progress in Solid State Chemistry 34 (2006) 67 - 75
2. Croll, T.I., O'Connor, A.J., Stevens, G.W. and Cooper-White, J.J., “ A Blank Slate?  Layer-by-Layer Deposition of Hyaluronic Acid and Chitosan onto Various Surfaces”Biomacromolecules, 2006. 7(5): 1610-1622.
3. Cao, Y., Mitchell, G., Messina, A., Thompson, E., Penington, A., Morrison, W., O’Connor, A.J., Stevens, G.W., Cooper-White, J.J., “The Influence of Architecture on Degradation and Vascularisation of Three Dimensional Poly(lactic-co-glycolic) Scaffolds in vitro and in vivo” Biomaterials 27 (14): 2854-2864, 2006.
4. O’Connor, A.J., Hokura, A., Kisler, J.M., Shimazu, S., Stevens, G.W., Komatsu, Y., “Amino acid adsorption from aqueous solution onto siliceous MCM-41” Separation and Purification Technology, Special Issue on Separation and Purification in the Food Industry, 48(2), (2006) 197-201.
5. Cao, Yang, Croll, Tristan I., O'Connor, Andrea J., Stevens, Geoffrey W., Cooper-White, Justin J., “Systematic Selection of Solvents for the Fabrication of 3D Combined Macro- and Microporous Polymeric Scaffolds for Soft Tissue Engineering” Journal of Biomaterials Science: Polymer Edition 17(4), 369-402, 2006.
6. Croll, T.I., O’Connor, A. J., Stevens, G. W., Cooper-White, J.J. “Development of Tunable Surface Coatings via Layer-by-Layer Deposition” European Cells and Materials, Vol. 10 Suppl. 5, page STE3, 2005.
7. Daehler, A., Boskovic, S., Gee, M.L., Separovic, F., Stevens, G.W. and O’Connor, A.J., “ Post-Synthesis Vapour Phase Functionalisation of MCM-48 with Hexamethyldisilazane and 3-Aminopropyldimethylethoxylsilane for Bioseparation Applications” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 109, 34 (2005) 16263-16271.
8. Croll, T.I., Gentz, S., Mueller, K., Davidson, M., O’Connor, A.J., Stevens, G.W., Cooper-White, J.J., “Modelling of Oxygen Diffusion and Cell Growth in a Porous, Vascularising Scaffold for Soft Tissue Engineering Applications” Chemical Engineering Science 60, 4924-4934, 2005.
9. Rice, G., Kentish, S., Vivekanand, Barber, A., O’Connor, A., Stevens, G., “Membrane Based Dairy Separation – A Comparison of Nanofiltration and Electrodialysis” Dev. Chem. Eng. Mineral Process . 13(1/2), pp. 1-12, 2005.
10. Daehler, A., Stevens, G.W., O’Connor, A.J., “Bioadsorption and separation with nanoporous materials” chapter 26 in Nanoporous Materials – Science and Engineering, G.Q. Max Lu and X.S. Zhao, Eds, Imperial College Press, London, 2004, pp. 812-848
11. Yang Cao, Malcolm R. Davidson, Andrea J. O’Connor, Geoffrey W. Stevens and Justin J. Cooper-White, “Architecture control of three dimensional polymeric scaffolds for soft tissue engineering I. establishment and validation of numerical models” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 71A(1): 81–89, 2004.
12. Croll, Tristan I., O'Connor, Andrea J., Stevens, Geoffrey W., Cooper-White, Justin J., “Controllable Surface Modification of Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) by Hydrolysis or Aminolysis I: Physical, Chemical, and Theoretical Aspects” Biomacromolecules, 5 (2): 463-473, 2004.