When you are doing new groundbreaking work with globally significant breakthroughs every few months one of the challenges is quickly sharing it interactively with others around the world.
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It is something constantly on the mind of Professor Gordon Wallace and researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) lead node Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI).
While the name of the institute located on the University of Wollongong Innovation Campus sounds technical the work the researchers do help provide important solutions.
Prof Wallace and the researchers are proving innovative not just for the science they do. But in the way they are showcasing it.
The first of two virtual tours were held on Tuesday was an example of that.
With the second scheduled for Thursday the Wollongong based researchers are attracting plenty of national and global attention on Wollongong.
Prof Wallace said the Virtual Lab Tour idea was created to enable industry, research and community members an insight into its world-class research taking place in Wollongong.
"We realised there are a lot of people even from around Australia that don't actually get to see the facilities we have and get to virtually chat with the people we have as well," he said.
"We try and run open days once a year for people in the community but we can never accommodate everyone. So we came up with this idea to help people locally as well as nationally and internationally".
"What we find at all levels, whether it is the local community or those interested in business opportunities or other researchers, once they get to actually see what we do that is when the connections actually click in".
Prof Wallace said it was good for people to be able to see what they are doing rather than just talking about it.
And they are doing a lot.
"It is a really exciting time for us," he said.
"We have progressed a lot in cementing those clinical collaborations around the country so we are in a position to address some very specific and important clinical challenges using all of our advanced in 3D bio printing.
"But also in our energy research. We have an expanded end user network interested in what we are doing in energy as well.
"We now have everything in place to take fundamental discoveries into real applications in a very quick time.
"10 years ago we would would be thinking it will take two or three years but no we think it will take two to three months to get from trials to applications".
And now they have come up with a way to tell and show the world quickly.
"And they see all these beautiful images of Wollongong and then we get them here," Prof Wallace said.
The ACES HQ @ UOW - The Virtual Tours cover a number of key research areas at IPRI.
They include synthesis of advanced materials such as graphene, manufacturing of composite materials like bioinks containing human cells and methods to create structures from such materials using fibre spinning, and 3D printing.
The tours include step-by-step footage through the IPRI labs with researchers explaining the work involved in their research.
Prof Wallace said it was done live so the teams working on each initiative can answer any questions viewers have online during the virtual tour.
"The Virtual Lab Tour gives participants an insider's view of our team's cutting edge research into advanced materials and device fabrication for use in game-changing health and energy solutions," he said.
Tuesday's virtual tour covered the discovery, development and scaling of new aspects of the chemistry of graphene, using advances in materials synthesis for real structures (3D printing stents), fibre spinning electrodes, and preparing cells for printing.
Thursday's event will feature a tour of TRICEP (Translational Research Initiative for Cellular Engineering and Printing), developing protocols for bioinks and customised 3D printers for manufacture, printing printers for clinical collaborators and building new tools to train the next generation of biofabricators.
Registering an interest in participating in Thursday's session can be done on Eventbrite.
"This is out pilot version," Prof Wallace said.
"We will roll out more towards the end of the year when we will try and get more of that international attention on what we are doing.
"And we will be launching the fact we are going to host a big conference here next year".
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