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Professor Anton Middelberg is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and the UQ Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He moved to the AIBN from the University of Cambridge where he was the Reader in Biological Engineering and a Fellow of Selwyn College.
His research focuses on the science of chemical self-assembly processing, with the ultimate aim of defining new functional products and new process routes for the manufacture of existing products. He is particularly interested in products that comprise ordered biomolecules, with current research foci in the area of stimuli-responsive peptide-stabilised emulsions, self-assembling processing of viral vaccines, and the recovery of biological products.
He has received a number of awards, has published more than 100 refereed papers at the interface between biology and engineering, and has editorial roles on journals including Chemical Engineering Science (Executive Editor), Trends in Biotechnology (Advisory Editorial Board Member) and Biochemical Engineering Journal (Associate Editor).
Professor Middelberg’s research focuses on opportunities at the interface of biology and engineering with the aim of devising new process routes to emerging or existing biological products.
He is particularly interested in products that comprise ordered biomolecules, with current research foci in the area of stimuli-responsive peptide interfaces, self-assembly processing of viral vaccines, and the recovery of biological products.
Research into stimuli-responsive peptide interfaces focuses on questions concerning the design and self-assembly of peptide nanostructures, and how assembly is affected by local physico-chemical factors such as pH and shear stress. This interest has led to a new technology (Pepfactants™) that will potentially revolutionise the way emulsions and foams can be used. Pepfactants won the 2006 TechConnect Emerging Technology Award (TETA) in Boston, for the Physical Sciences category. Only three TETA awards in 3 different categories of open international competition were made; winners were ranked highest in three areas: strength of IP, value proposition, and market impact (see the Nano Science & Technology Institute site for further information). The technology also won the 2006 UQ $100k Business Plan Competition, and has been used to establish AIBN’s first spinout company - Pepfactants Pty Ltd. This technology was also reviewed in The Economist.
Research into the self-assembly of viral vaccines has developed a platform for the high-expression of viral structural proteins and their subsequent controlled assembly, in cell-free bioreactors, into highly specified virus-like nanoparticles. A key objective is to control assembly while minimising aggregation, a theme common to many biopharmaceutical recovery operations. The nanoparticles are now being researched as nanotechnology agents for vaccination, therapeutic delivery and for their basic physical and biological properties.
The team's work on developing a vaccine for avian influenza was noted in Science.
Research Projects
- Engineering nano-structured bio-inspired products.
- Microfluidic Studies of Stimuli-Responsive Emulsions.
- Terahertz spectroscopy of mass-manufactured viral vaccines.
- Simplified process methods for mass vaccine manufacture.
- Bio-based functional materials from engineered self-assembling peptides.
- Mechanism and action of enzyme kinetics.
Key Publications (Top 10 Last 5 years)
- Middelberg, A.P.J. 2002. Preparative protein refolding. Trends Biotechnol., 20(10), 437-443.
- Jones, D.B. and A.P.J. Middelberg. 2002. Micromechanical testing of interfacial protein networks demonstrates ensemble behavior characteristic of a nanostructured biomaterial. Langmuir, 18(14), 5585-5591.
- Wirtz, R., C. Wälti, W.A. Germishuizen, M. Pepper, A.P.J. Middelberg, A.G. Davies. 2003. High-sensitivity colorimetric detection of DNA hybridization on a gold surface with high spatial resolution. Nanotechnology, 14, 7-10.
- Ho, J.G.S., A.P.J. Middelberg, P. Ramage, H.P. Kocher. 2003. The likelihood of aggregation during protein renaturation can be assessed using the second virial coefficient. Protein Sci., 12, 708-716.
- Germishuizen, W.A., C. Walti, R. Wirtz, M.B. Johnston, M. Pepper, A.G. Davies, A.P.J. Middelberg. 2003. Selective dielectrophoretic manipulation of surface-immobilized DNA molecules. Nanotechnology, 14, 896-902.
- Lanckriet, H., A.P.J. Middelberg. 2004. Continuous chromatographic protein refolding. J. Chromatogr. A., 1022(1-2), 103-113.
- Pattenden, L.K., A.P.J. Middelberg, M. Niebert, D.I. Lipin. 2005. Towards the preparative and large-scale precision manufacture of virus-like particles. Trends Biotechnol., 23(10), 523-529.
- Malcolm, A.S., A.F. Dexter, A.P.J. Middelberg. 2006. Foaming properties of a peptide designed to form stimuli-responsive interfacial films. Soft Matter, 2, 1057-1066.
- Dexter, A.F., A.S. Malcolm, A.P.J. Middelberg. 2006. Reversible active switching of the mechanical properties of a peptide film at a fluid-fluid interface. Nature Materials, 5(6), 502-506.
- Middelberg, A.P.J., L. He, A.F. Dexter, H.-H. Shen, S.A. Holt, R.K. Thomas. 2007. The interfacial structure and Young’s modulus of peptide films having switchable mechanical properties. J. R. Soc. Interface (doi: 10.1908/rsif.2007.1063).