Rate My Professor Roger Liang

Associate Professor Roger Liang serves in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy at the University of Newcastle, within the College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing. Trained as a pharmaceutical scientist, he completed his PhD in Pharmacy at the University of Queensland. His doctoral research developed nanoparticulate delivery systems for subunit vaccines, bridging medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutical formulation, and immunology. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland, Liang explored biological interactions and toxicity of precisely engineered nanoparticles, resulting in publications in ACS Nano, Nature Nanotechnology, and Nanomedicine. He also held a research teaching academic role, teaching pharmacy undergraduates.

In 2011, he accepted a lecturer position at the University of Newcastle to establish a drug delivery research group and progressed to Associate Professor in Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology. Previously, at the University of New South Wales' Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design, he created a platform technology for efficient albendazole delivery in anti-cancer treatment. Liang's research focuses on advanced drug delivery and nanomedicine, integrating chemical and molecular engineering, materials science, chemistry, biotechnology, and medicine. He engineers novel biomaterials via self-assembly into nano-, micro-, and macro-structures for disease therapy and diagnosis. Research fields encompass nanomedicine (40%) and clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (60%). Key publications include "Nanoparticle-induced unfolding of fibrinogen promotes Mac-1 receptor activation and inflammation" (Nature Nanotechnology, 2011), "Targeting respiratory virus-induced reactive oxygen species in airways diseases" (European Respiratory Review, 2025), "Engineering pH-sensitive dissolution of lipid-polymer nanoparticles by Eudragit integration impacts plasmid DNA (pDNA) transfection" (European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, 2024), and "Design and Synthesis of Cabazitaxel Loaded Core-Shell Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles with Different Morphologies for Prostate Cancer Therapy" (Small, 2024). Liang has supervised nine completed PhD theses and oversees three current ones, covering adrenal-targeted nano-biotechnology, airway epithelial cell-targeting nanoparticles, and more. His contributions have advanced understanding of nanoparticle toxicity and innovative therapeutic delivery systems for cancer, respiratory conditions, and reproductive health.