Oscar Potter
Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar
Media Profile
"The chemical analysis of complex biological samples is crucial to medicine and the life sciences. The technical limitations of this technology hinder the diagnosis and management of disease. They also act as bottlenecks to the advancement of the understanding of biological processes.”
Oscar Potter is a PhD student at the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS), in the School of Chemistry at the University of Tasmania. As the winner of a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Oscar will spend eight months undertaking research towards his PhD at the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories in California. The Molecular Foundry is a world leader in this research field and their equipment and technical expertise will greatly accelerate the progress of Oscar’s project.
The focus of Oscar’s research is to develop new functionalised polymer materials that can facilitate separation and digestion of biochemical analytes. These materials are designed to be integrated into microfluidic chips that will perform powerful analyses on biological samples for medical or research purposes.
"The aim of my project is to develop new materials and methods that will be useful for lab-on-a-chip analysis of glycoconjugates. This is a class of biomolecules that includes glycopeptides, glycoproteins, proteoglycans, polysaccharides and glycolipids. These molecules have become the targets of cutting-edge research in recent years.”
When Oscar started to explore the potential of analytical biochemistry he was amazed at the possibilities and was surprised to realise that it might be a very exciting science. “I am convinced that the benefits of analytical biochemistry to society will be profound and diverse and I am excited to be working in an applied science that has a real potential to improve our quality of life.”
"In medical research it could accelerate the advancement of knowledge and the rate of important discoveries. For example it could be possible to perform a wide range of complex medical tests from the comfort of the physician’s office or even a house in a remote regional area. The delays associated with transport to clinical pathology labs and tedious test procedures could become a thing of the past.”
Oscar completed his Bachelor of Science in 2005 from University of Tasmania where he was awarded the Harry Bloom Memorial Prize for the best performance by a first-class honours student in Chemistry.