After an accident left Katharina Schirmer's high-school sweetheart a quadriplegic, the budding scientist decided to find a way to repair damaged nerves.
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It's a quest that has seen her leave her native Germany and travel halfway around the world to study at the University of Wollongong, where she's in the final year of her PhD.
Ms Schirmer has won the 2014 Bill Wheeler Student Award for her work in the area of nerve regeneration and will receive $2000 of community-raised funds to assist her research.
"I've always had an interest in science, but when I was 17 my boyfriend at the time had a bicycle accident and ended up a quadriplegic and that made me decide to work in the area of nerve repair," she said.
As part of her undergraduate degree in biomimetics (imitating nature to solve problems), Ms Schirmer spent six months working with a team of nerve repair scientists led by Associate Professor Robert Kapsa.
Keen to continue her research in this area, she returned to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science to complete her post-graduate studies.
It is here she is developing three-dimensional structures to assist nerves outside the brain and spinal cord to regenerate.
"I'm developing a method to fabricate conduits or materials that help damaged nerves connect," she said.
"We want to find materials that are not only biocompatible but also biodegradable so when we get to the point of implanting them in the body they will be able to dissolve once they've finished their job."
Eventually Ms Schirmer hopes her research will help those — like her ex-boyfriend with whom she is still in touch — who have suffered nerve damage.
"Everyone has fallen asleep on their arm and woken up with pins and needles — that's technically nerve damage but in that case the body can fix itself and feeling soon returns," she said.
"But when there is more serious nerve damage as a result of an accident, surgery or a disease that degrades the nerves, then a nerve conduit could apply."
Ms Schirmer will give a public talk on her research at the Bill Wheeler Community Symposium at the university's Innovation Campus on October 2. Also speaking at the event is renowned cochlear implant surgeon Professor Stephen O'Leary.
