News and Event

The Sydney Vital Flagship Fellow scheme gives emerging researchers the opportunity to develop their own research program over a period of twelve months, with mentorship from leaders in translational cancer research and access to Sydney Vital’s research infrastructure. We wanted to check in with some of our former fellows and see where they have taken their research careers since the fellowship.

Dr Wei Deng has come far since her fellowship with Sydney Vital. The nano-oncology researcher was the 2017-2018 Flagship 3 fellow, where she worked with flagship leaders Prof Alexander Engel, Prof Ewa Goldys and Prof Zdenka Kuncic.

The Sydney Vital Flagship Fellow scheme gives emerging researchers the opportunity to develop their own research program over a period of twelve months, with mentorship from leaders in translational cancer research and access to Sydney Vital’s research infrastructure. We wanted to check in with some of our former fellows and see where they have taken their research careers since the fellowship.

Dr Hilary Byrne’s research career is a perfect model of the translational research pathway, from basic science to clinical trials via animal studies. Starting with a PhD focusing on computer simulation of radiation interactions at the sub-cellular scale, the physicist shifted to small animal research with her 2018-2019 Sydney Vital Nano-oncology Flagship Fellowship project, with her main focus remaining on radiotherapy.

The Sydney Vital Flagship Fellow scheme gives emerging researchers the opportunity to develop their own research program over a period of twelve months, with mentorship from leaders in translational cancer research and access to Sydney Vital’s research infrastructure. We wanted to check in with some of our former fellows and see where they have taken their research careers since the fellowship.

Physicist Dr Yaser Hadi Gholami’s passion for making a difference is palpable when he talks about his work: “It’s not just science for science’s sake, it’s science for humanity. That’s what I really love about it. We’re not just physicists, we’re not just nerds, we actually do something that will hopefully serve the community and humanity at large,” he says.

Yaser was the Sydney Vital Nano-oncology Flagship Fellow from 2019 to 2020. He now works as a radiation physicist and physics lecturer at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, where he is also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Medicine and Health working with Sydney Vital Director Professor Dale Bailey.