Australia-South Korea Relations Boosted with New REDI Fellow to Work in Seoul
10 May 2023
MTPConnect is pleased to announce that a highly-skilled Australian medical science researcher has been selected to work in South Korea under the REDI Fellowship Program.
The new fellow, Dr Alex Smith from the University of Queensland, will travel to Seoul to work and learn with Cytiva, a global leader in life sciences.
The announcement was made at the Australian Pavilion at the BIO KOREA Conference in Seoul, alongside Australia’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, H.E. Catherine Raper.
MTPConnect CEO, Stuart Dignam, congratulated the sponsor, Cytiva and the fellow, Dr Smith.
“The REDI Fellowships are improving engagement between researchers and industry, driving commercial project development and providing fellows with real-world innovation experiences within research-intensive industry settings,” Mr Dignam said.
"It’s great to see major multi-national companies like Cytiva offering their expertise in biotechnology and tapping into Australia’s talent base to spearhead global collaboration.
“We’re also delighted to facilitate this fellowship and grow research and commercial relationships with South Korea, an increasingly important market and hub for our sector.”
“South Korea is Australia’s third largest two-way trading partner and trade is diversifying from the traditional energy, resources and agriculture to technology and services. The medical products sector including clinical trials is an example of this growing area of trade.
“We are excited Dr Smith will spend time in Seoul forging strong links between our growing medical products sector and sharing skills,” Mr Dignam said.
H.E Catherine Raper, Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, congratulated Dr Smith on his selection as a REDI Fellow for 2023.
“MTPConnect and Cytiva have demonstrated a far-sighted commitment to strengthening people-to-people science and technology links between Australia and the Republic of Korea, areas integral to our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
“Deeper cooperation between our scientific communities will advance frontier technologies and enable research that will benefit both nations.”
Congratulations to:
Dr Alex Smith is a Research Fellow (Glycotherapeutics) in the School of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland, who will undertake a project with Cytiva, a global leader in enabling technologies for bioprocessing and cell therapy manufacturing. Dr Smith will spend time at Cytiva’s APAC Fast Trak centre in Songdo, Korea, developing industry-relevant skills in bioprocessing and therapeutic manufacturing to create new processes for isolating and characterising carbohydrate-based therapeutic agents for clinical translation.
REDI (Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry) is a Medical Research Future Fund initiative delivered by MTPConnect. The REDI Fellowship Program provides up to $250,000 per fellow, per annum to Australian, international and/or multinational companies to select a researcher, academic, clinician or technology transfer professional to collaborate on priority medical research projects involving discovery, translation and commercialisation.