Dr. Maggie Zhai
Details
-
College: Research & Innovation Portfolio
-
Department: Research & Innovation Portfolio
-
Campus: City Campus Australia
-
maggie.zhai@rmit.edu.au
-
ORCID: 0000-0002-9882-9014
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
About
Dr Jiali (Maggie) Zhai seeks to solve outstanding biomedical problems by developing responsive and composite nanomaterials and innovate in value added foods by advancing food colloidal systems.
Dr Jiali (Maggie) Zhai obtained her PhD at Monash University in 2013. Before joining RMIT, she was awarded the CSIRO Office of Chief Executive Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2015. Her primary research interests include fundamental understanding of amphiphile self-assembly, liquid crystals, ionic liquids, biomolecular structure and behaviour at interfaces. Her research also takes an applied and multidisciplinary approach to solve outstanding biomedical problems such as nanotechnology-enabled targeted drug delivery, biomedical imaging, protein and gene delivery, and functional food colloids.
In 2020, Maggie was awarded the Victoria Fellowship by the Victorian State Government, Australia, to undertake a study mission of designing super-swollen lipid nanoparticles for protein and gene delivery in four European countries and two European synchrotron facilities. In 2023, she was awarded the ANSTO Research Award. Maggie has strong expertise in synchrotron-based techniques such as small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and circular dichroism (CD) techniques, which she uses to develop new methods to study self-assembly in biologically relevant systems, and the structures of proteins and DNAs at membrane interface.
Academic positions
- Secondment - Intellectual Property and Commercialisation Team
- RMIT University
- Research & Innovation Portfolio
- Melbourne, Australia
- 1 Jan 2017 – 31 Dec 2018
Supervisor projects
- External Stimulation of Stem Cells for Tissue Engineering
- 28 Feb 2024
- Developing organ-targeted lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery
- 22 Feb 2024
- Developing organ-targeted lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery
- 20 Nov 2023
- Floating photocatalytic membrane device for hydrogen generation from seawater
- 2 May 2023
- Reversible carbon dioxide conversion for clean energy production
- 14 Feb 2023
- Develop advanced injectable bioactive hydrogels for improving tissue regeneration
- 9 Dec 2022
- Novel Responsive Lipid Nanoparticles for Multidrug-Resistant Organism Therapeutics
- 24 Aug 2022
- Developing novel ALOX5 mRNA nanoparticles to treat incurable non-small cell lung cancer
- 24 Feb 2022
- Self-assembled lipid nanoparticles for targeted cancer therapeutics
- 7 Apr 2021
- Biocompatible Ionic Liquids as Designer Solvents for Non-lamellar Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Nanoparticles
- 9 Jun 2020
- Development and Application of Novel pH-responsive Lipid Nanoparticles for Anticancer and Antifungal Drug Delivery
- 2 Dec 2019
- Molecular Insights into Amyloid Toxicity Using Model Lipid Membranes
- 2 Mar 2015
Teaching interests
Nanoparticle Drug Delivery, mRNA Therapeutics and Vaccines, Targeted Cancer Therapy, In vitro and In vivo study, Biomaterials, Self-assembly Materials, Bioconjugation Chemistry, Lipid Systems, Biomacromolecules, Colloidal and Interface Science
Teaching
Food Chemistry (CHEM 1083/1226)
Food Manufacturing (ONPS 2533/2546)
Research interests
Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural), Nanotechnology, Lipid Nanoparticles, mRNA Therapeutics, Colloids and Interface Science, Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry, Food Sciences, Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry, Other Chemical Sciences
Research
Multiple projects in amphiphile self-assembly, nanoparticle-cell interactions, nanoparticle drug delivery, functional food colloids
Supervision of HDR students
