News Archive

By Sally-Ann Jones

UWA students have taken out first and second places in the WA Young Innovator of the Year Awards presented at Scitech.

Final-year Engineering student Grigoriy (Greg) Tsaplin , from the Optical + Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (OBEL), won the individual 17 to 21 year-old category and $1500 for his high-tech invention, the Fast Pulsed Diode Driver for Fluorescence Lifetime Measurement.

And second-year Computer Science student Tris Le scored second prize in the same age category and $1000 cash for his environmentally friendly website, Swapthingy .

In a collaborative project with the School of Chemistry , Greg invented his device to help OBEL research staff measure the lifetime of fluorescent upconverting nanoparticles.

Greg’s supervisor, Assistant Professor Dirk Lorenser , is part of the ‘microscopein- a needle’ group led by Winthrop Professor David Sampson in the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering . Professor Sampson is pioneering the use of light in non-invasive medical diagnostic and treatment techniques.

Greg and his team worked with ARC Australian Research Fellow Dr Swaminatha Iyer and Dr Iyer’s student, Michael Challenor . Dr Iyer, from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry , is Deputy Director of the Centre for Strategic Nano-fabrication. He researches nano-particle fabrication and synthesis for biomedical applications.

Michael synthesised nanoparticles which ‘glow in the dark’ and have the potential to act as tiny ‘lamps’ to enable medical researchers to ‘see’ inside cells and potentially detect cancer.

And Greg invented a simple, cheap and effective device to measure the fluorescence of the nanoparticles as quality control in the nano-fabrication process.

“The experience of being part of the Young Innovator of the Year program has increased my appreciation of the powerful contributions each individual can make to better the world we live in,” Greg said.

Tris’ project, Swapthingy , is a social network website for online swapping. The site enables users to swap their unwanted belongings to reduce the amount of landfill.

“ Swapthingy could become part of the social networking industry where global Internet users have gradually been more open to sharing things,” he said.

Tris, from Vietnam, is studying Web Technologies and Entrepreneurship and Innovation as majors and wants to hear from talented engineers and designers at UWA to join him in developing the project. He can be contacted by email .

Published in UWA News , 15 October 2012