ARC CMIT hosted the BIOTech Futures Challenge – Victoria on Saturday, 30 July 2022 at the University of Melbourne. The BIOTech Futures Challenge is a mentorship and innovation program that connects high school students with academics to come up with solutions to challenges in the field of health, medicine , sustainability and environment.
For the last ten weeks, ten teams of high school students from around Victoria were mentored by the Department of Biomedical Engineering and ARC CMIT PhD students and Research Fellows. Each team presented their project to the judges – Prof Peter Lee, Prof Andrea O’Connor, Dr Hans Gray and Ms Tayebeh Namayeshi.
Thank you to the mentors- Hazem Alkazemi, Yihang Yu, Yichen Huang, Ryan Tiew, Dan Hopkins, Alex Fang, Chiaohwei Lee, Matt Mail, Franklin Tai and Yanbo (Liam) Lian.
Congratulations to the winners!
Best Report – Fabrication of Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessels
Mentor: Hazem Alkazemi
Zahra Halela, The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School
Simone Martin, Mater Christi College
Lucia Williams, Mount Alexander College
Mikhail Romadinov, Kingswood College
Best Prototype – How the brain works
Mentor: Liam Lian
Chloe Mouchacca, The Mac.Robertson Girls' High School
Sophia Cabador, St. Peter's college
Sophie Phillips, Santa Maria College
People’s Choice and Overall Winner to represent Victoria at the BIOTech Futures Challenge https://www.biotechfutures.org/ at the University of Sydney on 29 Aug 2022 – 3D Bioprinting Microbes for the Production of Therapeutics
Mentor: Matt Mail
Students:
Elizabeth Wotten, Strathmore, Secondary College
Elizabeth Yap, John Monash Science School
Ezann Tan, Kardinia International College
Zoe Verikios, Kardinia International College
Helen Tarpis, Melbourne Girls’ College
The students watched a demonstration at the CAREN (Computer Assisted Environment) lab https://research.unimelb.edu.au/work-with-us/research-infrastructure/computer-assisted-rehabilitation-environment-caren
The students toured the Melbourne Creator Space https://eng.unimelb.edu.au/telstra-creator-space