In this month’s newsletter, we would like to introduce PhD graduate, Qi Hu from the College of Science and Engineering.

Qi’s recently submitted thesis, “Human Serum Albumin Detection Using Aggregation Induced Emission Biosensors and Their Engineering Improvements for Screening and Monitoring Chronic Kidney Disease” received outstanding results from the examiners.

We asked Qi to share what led his to a PhD and why it is important, the most enjoyable and hardest parts of a PhD journey and what the future holds.

Tell us about your research

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has become a medical problem that threatens public health across the world. What is worrying is that symptoms are non-existent or minimal in the early stages of CKD until a significant renal function loss. Therefore, screening and monitoring early CKD becomes a crucial work in medical care by the detection of human serum albumin (HSA).

Currently, fluorescent biosensors with aggregation induced emission (AIE) features become a new solution for HSA detection in urine due to the advantages of simple operation, rapid response, high sensitivity, and cost efficiency. However, this technique is still subject to many challenges, including the interference of urinary impurities, light signal loss, high consumption, non-reusability, etc. In my research, a novel AIE FL biosensor is developed successfully to achieve HSA detection in urine, in the meanwhile, two different engineering designs, hydrogel and metasurface platform, are proposed and conducted to overcome these issues. The results illustrate that the performance of HSA detection using AIE biosensors can be improved significantly via these designs.

What was the topic of your PhD and why was it important to you?

My PhD topic specifically investigates human serum albumin detection using aggregation induced emission (AIE) biosensors and their engineering improvements for screening and monitoring chronic kidney disease. This topic was deeply important to me because AIE biosensors shows the potential to be further developed into an effective clinical method for quantitative detection of HSA in human urine. Furthermore, the results illustrate that some specific characterizations of HSA detection using AIE biosensors can be improved significantly via engineering designs, which means engineering improvement is a feasible and promising enhancement strategy of AIE biosensors for biomarker detection in medical applications.

Tell us about yourself

My name is Qi Hu, and I am from China. I earned my bachelor’s degree of pharmaceutical sciences at Southwest University in China. After graduation, I came to Australia to complete my master’s degree of biomedical engineering. After that, I was working on my PhD in the biomedical fields until the end of 2024.

What led you to undertake a PhD? What inspired or motivated you?

Conducting research is like to embarking on a journey where the destination is unknown to me. The initial driving force is the curiosity toward fluorescence (FL) because FL technology is one of the most efficient and convenient detection method in biomedical fields. What I did is to explore more possibilities of FL detection through the pathway of PhD. As I learned more about FL research, my goal became to develop a FL platform that can detect biomarkers under different scenarios. Furthermore, I fully enjoy working in academia and in laboratory, and PhD research can fulfill my expectations while also help me develop transferrable and sophisticated skills which will benefit my future career.

What was been one of the most enjoyable parts of the journey?

One of the most enjoyable parts during my PhD is the research collaboration with multidisciplinary teams. Researchers from different backgrounds can provide very diverse and innovative comments towards my projects, which means that it is conducive to inspiring my research ideas. More importantly, they can also teach you new things in other professions.

What was been one of the hardest parts of the journey?

One of the hardest parts during my PhD is the frustration after trying many times when the experimental results are not consistent with expectations. Even if this happens frequently for researchers, confirming and verifying the potential causes usually still requires a significant amount of time and effort.

How did you overcome any challenges of doing a PhD?

I think there are three main points:

1. It is really important to maintain a positive and optimistic attitude to face challenges I am struggling with. Mental calmness helps reduce artificial errors in PhD studies and make stuff more organized.
2. It is really beneficial to find solutions from reading more literature. Finding answers is made easier when I draw inspiration and references from the experience and methodologies of previous researchers in their similar work.
3. It is really crucial to establish an effective and frequent communication with my supervisors when I am facing challenges. In most cases, supervisors are able to provide me insightful comments and feedback, and precisely identify the key information in my challenges.

What was highlight of your student life at Flinders?

I think the highlight was receiving the Flinders University Research Scholarship (FURS) and meeting many approachable researchers from different backgrounds who helped me a lot.  I felt more confident and motivated in my PhD research thanks to these financial and interpersonal support.

How did your supervisors support you during your candidature?

My supervisors support me in the following aspects:

• A weekly meeting is always arranged to help me report the progress on my research projects regularly and they provide constructive comments and point out the issues based on my results.
• My supervisors also support and encourage me to attend various academic activities to develop my academic skills. For example, they support me to publish my research and help me carefully revise my article before submitting it.
• My supervisors push me to interact and collaborate with other researchers frequently. Significantly, they recommend experts in the project-related field to give me the technical guidance when I am struggling with the difficult issues.
• My supervisors encourage me to read more literature and often share with me papers related to my field of study. Not only that, they let me summarize the papers and exercise the abilities of literature reading.

My supervisors also provide emotional support. Whenever I get stuck in my research, they patiently inspire me and provide his perspective and experience, which gives me enough confidence and enthusiasm.

What advice would you give to those who are about to undertake a PhD?  

1. Selecting an area of research topic that you are interested in can make it simpler to motivate yourself if you have decided to pursue a PhD.
2. It is significant to establish a clear psychological expectation of what you want to ultimately achieve through doctoral studies.
3. Never gives up, even if doctorate research might occasionally be tedious and challenging!

How has your PhD influenced your future career? Where do you see your career heading in the future?

A PhD significantly influences my future career by equipping me with advanced research skills, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, effective verbal and written skills and strong expertise in the biomedical fields. These skills allow me to select diverse career paths in academia, industry, business companies, clinical organizations, research institutes, etc.

How has your PhD helped you in the role you are in now?

I believe that my PhD offers a positive effect on my work. First of all, the research experience develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which will enable you to handle issues at work more swiftly. Secondly, my PhD projects also improve the abilities of project management, effective multi-tasking, and time management, and they can help me maintain a healthy work-life balance. Besides, academic activities significantly enhance my verbal and written skills, which promotes social interaction skills in the work environment. Finally, doing PhD research can also help me develop my patience and stress tolerance, which will help me perform better at my work.

What have you been doing since you completed?

I am keen to leverage these skills I learned during my PhD to contribute effectively to a new field. Currently I am looking for new jobs in laboratory and it is a good opportunity to improve myself and explore new possibilities of my future career.

Have you published anything?

1. Hu, Q., Yao, B., Owyong, T. C., Prashanth, S., Wang, C., Zhang, X., … & Hong, Y. (2021). Detection of Urinary Albumin Using a “Turn‐on” Fluorescent Probe with Aggregation‐Induced Emission Characteristics. Chemistry–An Asian Journal, 16(10), 1245-1252. (doi.org/10.1002/asia.202100180)
2. Hu, Q., Luo, X., Tohl, D., Pham, A. T. T., Raston, C., & Tang, Y. (2023). Hydrogel-Film-Fabricated Fluorescent Biosensors with Aggregation-Induced Emission for Albumin Detection through the Real-Time Modulation of a Vortex Fluidic Device. Molecules, 28(7), 3244. (doi.org/10.3390/molecules28073244)
3. Hu, Q., Iwanaga, M., & Tang, Y. (2024). Metasurface Platform Incorporating Aggregation Induced Emission Based Biosensor for Enhanced Human Serum Albumin Detection. Advanced Optical Materials, 2400868. (doi.org/10.1002/adom.202400868)
4. Hu, Q., Ding, D., & Tang, Y. (2022). Inorganic–organic hybrid materials to detect urinary biomarkers: Recent progress and future prospects. Materials Chemistry Frontiers, 6(15), 2011-2033. (doi.org/10.1039/D2QM00213B)
5. Hu, Q., Hu, H., Zhang, X., Fan, K., Hong, Y., Raston, C. L., & Tang, Y. (2021). In situ monitored vortex fluidic-mediated protein refolding/unfolding using an aggregation-induced emission bioprobe. Molecules, 26(14), 4273. (doi.org/10.3390/molecules26144273)

Second Author:

6. Tavakoli, J., Hu, Q., Tipper, J. L., & Tang, Y. (2024). Aggregation‐induced emission biomarkers for early detection of orthopaedic implant failure. Aggregate, e645. (doi.org/10.1002/agt2.645)
7. Zhang, X., Yao, B., Hu, Q., Hong, Y., Wallace, A., Reynolds, K., … & Tang, Y. (2020). Detection of biomarkers in body fluids using bioprobes based on aggregation-induced emission fluorogens. Materials Chemistry Frontiers, 4(9), 2548-2570. (doi.org/10.1039/D0QM00376J)
8. Pham, A. T. T., Tohl, D., Wallace, A., Hu, Q., Li, J., Reynolds, K. J., & Tang, Y. (2022). Developing a fluorescent sensing based portable medical open-platform-a case study for albuminuria measurement in chronic kidney disease screening and monitoring. Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research, 37, 100504. (doi.org/10.1016/j.sbsr.2022.100504)
9. Pham, A. T. T., Tohl, D., Hu, Q., Li, J., Reynolds, K. J., & Tang, Y. (2022). Portable Colorimetric Device with Commercial Microplates for Quantitative Detection of Urine Biomarkers: Design, Development, and Clinical Evaluation. Biosensors, 12(9), 723. (doi.org/10.3390/bios12090723)
10. Giel, M. C., Zhang, S., Hu, Q., Ding, D., Tang, Y., & Hong, Y. (2022). Synthesis of a β-arylethenesulfonyl fluoride-functionalized AIEgen for activity-based urinary trypsin detection. ACS Applied Bio Materials, 5(9), 4321-4326. (doi.org/10.1021/acsabm.2c00513)