Christopher MacDonald

Christopher MacDonald

Fulbright Postgraduate Award

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“Blood has highly evolved defence mechanisms that fight intrusion of foreign bodies such as medical implants that could help save a patient’s life, therefore the choice of material for an implant is an important design consideration.”

Christopher MacDonald is one of twenty Americans to be granted a Fulbright Postgraduate Award in 2005 to study at the University of Sydney, researching the safety and effectiveness of different materials in blood with Doctor Marcela Bilek, who specialises in plasma processing for materials synthesis and surface modification.

Christopher is a Science graduate of Lehigh University, specialising in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Physics. During his year in Australia Christopher will work closely with Dr Bilek and Dr Tony Weiss to develop less expensive and more environmentally friendly methods of manufacturing medical implants.

Dr. Marcela Bilek’s research laboratory in the University of Sydney is internationally recognised, and Christopher will have a unique opportunity to access the state of the art experimental equipment. The technique being developed by Dr. Bilek involves choosing a material that exhibits particular bulk properties, and then coating its surface with a different material – therefore ‘fooling’ the blood’s defences into believing the implant is not a foreign object.

“Current technologies for treating patients with heart disease lack the complete bio-compatibility necessary for valves, pumps, and other artificial devices that contact the blood, to operate safely and indefinitely within the body,” Christopher explains.  

“This research has the potential to save companies millions of dollars in productions costs, therefore making safer medical implants available to a wider range of people, particularly in countries that are economically weak.”

Christopher’s goal is to coat bulk surfaces with molecular monolayers of different organic proteins. He will then test the effects of the coating on living cells through in-vitro testing with the guidance of another University of Sydney specialist, Dr. Tony Weiss, chair of Biotechnology.