Rate My Professor Daniel Heath

Associate Professor Daniel Heath is an ARC Future Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, at the University of Melbourne. He received his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2010. Prior to his current position, he completed postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Biological Engineering and at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology in the BioSystems and Micromechanics Interdisciplinary Research Group. At the University of Melbourne, he advanced from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer before his promotion to Associate Professor.

Heath's research centers on developing next-generation biomaterials to enhance blood-material interactions for cardiovascular biomedical devices. His projects include engineering functional blood vessels from natural tissues to combat cardiovascular disease, improving mesenchymal stromal cell proliferation and differentiation using decellularized extracellular matrices, and fabricating antimicrobial nanoparticle coatings for medical implants. Notable publications encompass 'Glycerol-plasticized silk fibroin vascular grafts mimic key mechanical properties of native blood vessels' (2024), 'Spontaneous Orthogonal Alignment of Smooth Muscle Cells and Endothelial Cells Captures Native Blood Vessel Morphology in Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts' (ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2023), 'Tailored environments for directed mesenchymal stromal cell proliferation and differentiation using decellularized extracellular matrices in conjunction with substrate modulus' (2024), 'Improvement of Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Proliferation and Differentiation via Decellularized Extracellular Matrix on Substrates With a Range of Surface Chemistries' (Frontiers in Medical Technology, 2022), 'Amphiphilic Core Cross-Linked Star Polymers for the Delivery of Hydrophilic Drugs from Hydrophobic Matrices' (Biomacromolecules, 2021), 'Personalized, Mechanically Strong, and Biodegradable Coronary Artery Stents via 3D Printing and Electrospinning' (ACS Macro Letters, 2020), and 'Engineering highly effective antimicrobial selenium nanoparticles through control of particle size' (2019). Heath has secured major funding, including an ARC Future Fellowship (FT190100280, 2019) for designing functional biomaterials with superior cellular interactions and a 2024 Heart Foundation grant. His work has accumulated over 2,200 citations and contributed to advancements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine through committee roles and public outreach such as the 2019 Science meets Parliament scholarship.