Information updated Feb 2025

DR QIAN PETER SU, B.Eng., PhD.

Dr Qian Peter SU, B.Eng., PhD.

Australian NHMRC Emerging Leadership 1 (EL1) Fellow and Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (co-fund)
Lecturer | School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Principal Investigator | Laboratory of Quantitative Imaging At Nanoscale with Super-resolution (QIAN SU LAB)
Visiting Scientist | Heart Research Institute (HRI), Charles Perkins Centre (CPC), University of Sydney (USYD)
Visiting Scientist | Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine & Cell Biology, University of Sydney (USYD)
​Core Member | Institute for Biomedical Materials and Devices (IBMD), Faculty of Science, UTS
Core Member | Centre for Health Technologies (CHT), Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS

Sydney City Campus – Room 11.10.120, Level 10, Building 11, Ultimo NSW 2007 Australia |  T: +61(0)402027353
E: [email protected]  [email protected]  [email protected] |
W: QIAN SU Lab | UTS Profile  | ORCiD | Google Scholar

Dr Qian (Peter) SU, as a biophysicist and microscopist, is an Emerging Leadership 1 (EL1) Fellow of the Australian National Health and Medical Council (NHMRC), a Postdoc Fellow of the National Heart Foundation (NHF, co-funded) and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Peter is also a Visiting Scientist at the Heart Research Institute (HRI) and Centenary Institute at the University of Sydney (USYD).

In 2017, Peter received his PhD in Single-molecule Biophysics supervised by Biophysics world leaders Profs Xiaoliang Sunney XIE (Fellow of AAAS, OSA, BPS, APS) and Yujie SUN (Chinese equivalent Future Fellow) from the Biodynamic Optical Imaging Centre (BIOPIC, now known as the Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Centre) at Peking University, with the honour of “Outstanding Graduate Student of the Beijing City”. In 2012, he took an overseas exchange scholarship and received training on super-resolution imaging in Profs X.S.XIE and Xiaowei ZHUANG (HHMI, Fellow of AAAS, APS) Groups at Harvard University. From 2017 to 2020, Peter joined the Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices (IBMD) mentored by Prof Dayong JIN (ARC Laureate Fellow) and led the super-resolution bio-imaging program at UTS.

Dr Qian SU’s research program, named ‘Quantitative Imaging At Nanoscale with SUper-resolution (QIAN SU LAB)’, bridges applied biomedical engineering with fundamental sciences and clinical requests. The research program brings new insights to biological questions addressed at the single-molecule level by advanced microscopy, with high spatial, temporal and thermal resolution. Peter has developed state-of-art biophysical nanotools, Molecular Imaging, Dynamic Imaging and Functional Imaging to visualize the precise structures and pinpoint the molecular mechanisms during vital biological and medical processes, including:

[Dynamic Imaging] Developing advanced single-molecule imaging, tracking and manipulating systems to study motor and cytoskeleton-driven membrane dynamics and the underlying molecular mechanisms (Nat.CellBiol. 2015, Cell Res. 2015a, Sci.Rep. 2015, Dev.Cell 2016, PNAS 2017, Nat.Comms 2020, EMBORep 2020, Nat Photonics 2024, etc.);

[Molecular Imaging] Applying super-resolution microscopy to resolve the spatial-temporal distribution, organization and interactions of the hierarchical chromatin structures, DNA replication and transcription mechanisms in both mammalian and bacterial cells (Nat.Comms 2014, CellRes. 2015b, PNAS 2020, GenBiol. 2021, MiMB 2023, eLife 2024, etc.);

[Functional Imaging] Deciphering the molecular interaction dynamics, termed “interactome”, for the mechanosensor integrin αIIbβ3 (GPIIb/IIIa) on blood clotting platelets, under clinical trialled drug (Nat.Comms 2018, Nat.Materials 2019, Euro. Bioph.J. 2022, Adv.Funct.Mat. 2023, Sci.Signaling 2023, Nat.Comms 2024, etc.). Pinpointing in vivo and in situ temperature dynamics in living cells and metabolic disease models (Chem.Sci. 2018, NanoLet. 2020/2021, PNAS 2022, etc.).

Educations

• 2011.01-2017.01, PhD researcher in Biophysics, Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), Peking University (PKU), Beijing, China

                                       Supervisors: Prof Xiaoliang Sunney XIE (Harvard, PKU), Prof Yujie SUN (PKU), Prof Li YU (Tsinghua University)

• 2012.08-2012.12, Visiting Scholar, Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.

                                        Supervisor: Prof Xiaoliang Sunney XIE (Harvard, PKU), Prof Xiaowei ZHUANG (Harvard)

• 2007.09-2011.06, Bachelor of Engineering, Undergraduate Researcher, Chongqing University

​                                         Supervisor: Prof Linhong DENG, Prof Fenglin LV

Employment and Professional Experience

• 2024.07-present, Theme Head of Tissue Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Eng and IT, UTS
• 2022.01-present, Senior Lecturer (faculty), School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS

                                Australia National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leadership 1 Fellow
                                Australia National Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (co-funding with NHMRC)

• 2017.06-present, Visiting Scientist, Heart Research Institute (HRI), University of Sydney, Australia
• 2019.01-present, Visiting Scientist, Centenary Institute, University of Sydney, (USYD) Australia
• 2020.07-2022.01, Lecturer (faculty), School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS
• 2018.11-2020.07, Facility Manager, National Volumetric Imaging Facility, Australia Research Council (ARC)
• 2019.04-2020.07, Postdoc Research Fellow, Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices, UTS, Australia
• 2017.03-2019.04, Postdoc Associate, Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices, UTS, Australia

Professional

Awards

• Professional Development Award, NSW Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN), Australia (2023)
• Highly Recommended, UTS Vice-Chancellor's Awards Early Career Researcher, Australia (2022)
• Best Prototype (video), BIOTech Futures Challenge, as mentor of a high school student team (2021)
• Professional Development Award, NSW Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN), Australia (2020)
• Young Biophysicist Award, Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB), Canberra, Australia (2019)
• Rising Star Finalist, Sydney 2018 Cardiovascular Symposium, CPC, USYD, Australia (2018)
• Early Career Scientist Speaker Award, Asian Biophysics Association Symposium/ASB, Australia (2018)
• Poster Award, 4th Charles Perkins Centre (CPC) EMCR symposium, USYD, Australia (2018)
• EMCR Catalyst Award Recipients in Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney, Australia (2018)
• Outstanding Graduate Student of the Beijing City, Beijing Education Bureau, China (2017)
• Outstanding Graduate Student of Peking University (PKU), Peking University, Beijing, China (2017)
• National Scholarship for (under)graduate student, Ministry of Education, China (2008,09,10,11,16)
• Second Prize, Poster Section, Cold Spring Harbor Asia Conference, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China (2013)
• Tanglixin Scholarship, Chongqing University/Peking University, Education Bureau, China (2009-2017)
• Outstanding Graduate Student of Chongqing University, Chongqing University, China (2011)

Membership to Professional Societies

• Biophysical Society (BPS), Single-molecule Biophysics
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Australia & New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology (ANZSCDB, NSW committee member)
• Australian Society for Mechanobiology (AuSMB, 2020 Symposium organizing committee)
• Australian Cardiovascular Alliance (ACvA, Bioengineering flagship)
• Australia Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (ACMM)
• Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ)
• NSW Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN)
• International Society for Heart Research (ISHR)
• Australia Nanotechnology Network (ANN)
• Australia Society for Biophysics (ASB)

Community Engagement

• Dr SU serves as an Australia Research Council (ARC, discovery scheme, 2~3/yr), Australia National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, investigator scheme, >30/yr), ANSTO (1~2/yr), National Heart Foundation (NHF, Vanguard, Postdoc Fellow and Collaboration scheme, >30/yr) and UTS CPDRF (~15/yr) assessors since 2019 for Biological Physics, Cellular Interactions, Biomedical Engineering, Cardiovascular Disease and etc.
• Peter serves as a Guest Editor for Sensors (MDPI) and the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) - Biophysical nanotools for molecular dynamics at the nanoscale. He serves as an external peer reviewer for international journals, eg JACS, Chemical Sci., Cytometry A, Analytical Chem., Journal of Biophotonics, Nano Letters, Scientific Reports, etc.

Invited/Selected Conference Presentations

• Dr QIAN SU has been regularly invited and selected to deliver >10 international and >40 national conference presentations, including ~30 Invited, ~5 Awards Sessions, ~20 Selected Talks and ~15 as organizing committee:
  
• [Invited Talks] University and Institutions seminar sessions, nationally invited by MonashU, UMelb., UQ, QUT, RMIT, USyd (HRI, Centenary Institute, BME, etc.), UNSW (Garvan Institute) and internationally invited by New York Uni. in the US, Peking Uni., CAS, and Tsinghua Uni. in China and the National Uni. of Singapore in Singapore, etc.
• [Invited Talks] ICFM, ICNBI and ICMI (2023), ASB (2023/22/20/19/17), ISMB, AEpiA, AVBS, CHT and OBIC (2022), Australia MechanoBiology (AuSMB) 2021, Aus Conference of Microscopy and Microanalysis (ACMM) 2020, International Conference on Nanosci/Nanotech (ICONN) 2020/18, Light Microscopy Aus (LMA) 2019, ANZAC Seminar 2019, Bosch Institute Annual Meeting 2018, Centre for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP) 2015, etc.
• [Award Sessions] Young Biophysicist Awards Plenary Session at ASB 2019, Rising-Star Plenary Session at Sydney Cardiovascular Symposium 2018, ECR Award Session at the Asian Biophysics Associate Symposium 2018, etc.

Research Funding

Dr SU has demonstrated exceptional leadership and success in gaining prestigious external funding. Peter’s research program has been recognised by the (inter)national scientific communities evidenced by grants valued AU$ ~1.4 Million as Sole Chief Investigator (NHMRC and NHF Fellowships) and AU$ >6M as co-CI/AI/core member (ARC, NHMRC, NHF, DISER/MOST, RSEOH, UTS, etc.). It’s worth noting that >90% were awarded from national competitive Category 1 Grants.
     Abbr. ARC: Australia Research Council; NHMRC: Australia National Health and Medical Research Council

• 21. Sole Investigator, NSW Cardiovascular Early-Mid Career and Senior Researcher Grant, AU$ 449,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), “Quantitative Imaging At Nanoscale with SUper-resolution (QIAN SU) for Probing, Diagnosing and Monitoring Thrombotic Disease at the Molecular Level”

• 20. Associate Investigator, NHMRC Ideas Grant, APP2029785, 2024-2027, AU$ 1,490,699

Christopher Stanley (HRI), Hergen Buscher (St Vincent), Priya Nair (St Vincent), Yao Wang (USYD), Freda Passam (USYD), Harry Pritchard (Univ Manchester), Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Qian Peter Su (UTS), Sergey Tumanov (HRI), Yen Chin Koay (USYD), Marry Kavurma (HRI), Sian Cartland (HRI), Ashish Misra (HRI), Adam Greenstein (Univ Manchester), “IDO1 is a master regulator of severe endothelial dysfunction in sepsis”

• 19. co-Chief Investigator (CIF), MRFF Early to Mid Career Researchers Grant 2023, APP2028865, AU$ 600,000

Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Pierre Qian (Westmead), James McFadyen (Baker), Shrike Y. Zhang (Harvard Univ), Chia Lun Wu (HRI), Qian Peter Su (UTS), Zihao Wang (USYD), Aisha Zainal Abidin (USYD), Tao Huang (UMelb), “Developing Personalised and POCT Microtechnologies for Rapid Thrombotic Risk and Anticoagulant Dosage Assessment.”

• 18. co-Chief Investigator / Node Leader,  ARC LIEF, LE240100010, AU$ 1,365,791

Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Irina Kabakova (UTS), Antoine van Oijen (UoW), Matthew Baker (UNSW), Shelley Wickham (USYD), Lisanne Spenkelink (UoW), Zi Gu (UNSW), Qian Peter Su (UTS), Yi Shen (USYD), Ruirui Qiao (UQ), An Na Cho (MQ), Wenlong Cheng (Monash), Thomas Davis (UQ), Ken Tye Yong (USYD), Benjamin Eggleton (USYD). “Single-molecule Manipulation and Interaction Facility (SMIF)”.

• 17. Chief Investigator (sole CI), UTS MCR Career Development Initiative, AU$ 20,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), “Quantitative Imaging At Nanoscale with Super-resolution (QIAN SU) Research Program”

• 16. Awardee, Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN) Professional Development Award, 2023-2023, AU$ 3,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), travel fund to “MBI Conference 2023, “Mechanobiology in Health and Disease”, Singapore”

• 15. co-Chief Investigator (CID), National Heart Foundation (NHF) Vanguard Grant, 106817, AU$ 75,000

Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Zhiyong Li (QUT), Martin Ng (Alfred Cardiology), Qian Peter Su (UTS), “Novel aortic valve-on-chip and biomechanical analyses for investigation of annular rupture induced by transcatheter aortic valve implantation”

• 14. Lead Chief Investigator, NHMRC Equipment Grant, APP2024683, UTS CAPEX, 2021-2021, AU$ 43,000 + 31,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), David Ortega (UTS), Lana McClements (UTS), “TILT Light Sheet Microscopy for CVD and cancer”.

• 13. Co-Chief Investigator, NHMRC Equipment Grant, G213954, 2021-2021, AU$ 200,000.

Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Helen McGuire (CPC), Qian Peter Su (UTS/HRI), “z-Movi Cell Avidity Analyzer”

• 12. Associate Investigator, NHMRC Ideas Grant, APP2003904, 2021-2023, AU$ 760,684

Lining Arnold JU (USYD), Charles D. Cox (UNSW), Yuping Yuan (HRI), Qian Peter Su (UTS), Marc Ellis (RPAH) and Shaun P. Jackson (HRI, USYD), “‘Mechano-medicine’ combats deadly sticky blood clots in diabetes”.

• 11. Chief Investigator, NHMRC-Europe Research Council (ERC) Implementing Arrangement, 2021-2021, AU$ 10,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), Gijs Wuite (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), “Imaging Profiling Platform for Thrombotic Disease”

• 10. Sole Investigator, NHMRC Investigator Grant, Emerging Leader 1 (EL1), APP1177374, 2020-2024, AU$ 639,750

Qian Peter Su (UTS) “Imaging Profiling Platform for Thrombotic Disease and Anti-Platelet Therapeutics”.

• 9. Sole Investigator, National Heart Foundation Postdoc Fellow, 102592, 2020-2022, AU$ 152,700

Qian Peter Su (UTS), co-funded with NHMRC fellow “Imaging Profiling Platform for Thrombotic Disease”

• 8. 3rd Chief Investigator, CIC, ARC Discovery Project, DP200101970, 2020-2023, AU$ 553,282

Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Prof Zhiyong Li (QUT), Dr Qian Peter Su (UTS), A/Prof Srigokul Upadhyayula (UC Berkeley), Prof Shaun Jackson (HRI, USYD) “Integrin activation by fluid flow disturbance: mechanobiology approaches”.

• 7. Awardee, Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN) Professional Development Award, 2020-2020, AU$ 2,000

Qian Peter Su (UTS), travel fund to “CSANZ 2020 conference and “How to Evaluate Mitochondria” workshop”

• 6. co-Chief Investigator, Australia-China Science and Research Fund (ACSRF) Joint Research Centre (JRC),

Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Sciences, ACSRF65827, 2019-2022, AU$ 939,630
Dayong Jin (UTS), Jun Lin (CIAC), Antoine van Oijen (UoW), Olga Shimoni (UTS), Majid Warkiani (UTS), Nham Tran (UTS), Xueyuan Chen (CAS), Peng Miao (CAS), Qian Peter Su (UTS). “Aus-China JRC for Point of Care Test (POCT)”.

• 5. Facility Manager / Key Operator (named in the proposal), ARC LIEF LE190100130, 2019-2020, AU$ 1,480,000

Dayong Jin (UTS), Brian Gibson (RMIT), Antoine van Oijen (UoW), Shaun Jackson (HRI), Mark Hutchinson (UofA), Matthew Baker (UNSW), Elizabeth Harry (UTS), Xu-Feng Huang (UoW), Majid Warkiani (UTS), Mohsen Asadnia (MQ), Lining Arnold Ju (USYD), Qian Peter Su (UTS), “National Volumetric Imaging Facility”.

• 4. 3rd Chief Investigator, Cardiovascular Initiative Catalyst Award - Biomedical Engineer, 2019, A$ 10,000
• 3. co-Chief Investigator (CIE), National Heart Foundation Vanguard Grant, 2019-2020, AU$ 150,000
• 2. co-Chief Investigator (CIB), UTS Faculty of Engineer and IT (FEIT) Blue Sky, 2019-2020, AU$ 15,000

1. Sole Investigator, UTS Development Funding, 2019, A$ 4,000. Qian Peter Su (UTS), “UTS Development Funding”

Publications

See publications

Funding Bodies