Associate Professor
Nathalie Bock

Biography

Summary

Dr Nathalie Bock (she/her) is a Senior Research Fellow and Principal Investigator in the Faculty of Health, School of Biomedical Sciences at QUT. Dr Bock is the Leader of the Bone & Tumour Bioengineering research group and the Deputy Co-Director of the Max Planck Queensland Centre (MPQC) for the Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices. Dr Bock obtained her M.Sc. in Materials Science & Engineering in 2007 from the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine (France) and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering & Medical Physics from QUT (Australia) in 2014. Her NHRMC Peter Doherty Early-Career Fellowship (QUT, 2015-2020) looked at developing tissue models to replicate the metastatic human bone microenvironment in prostate cancer. Dr Bock's current Advance Queensland Industry Research Mid-Career Fellowship (QUT, 2021-2024) is progressing her work on bone metastatic tissue models for individualised therapy guidance in breast cancer. Since 2022, Dr Bock leads a 5-year research program in MPQC looking at defining and understanding the relationship between architecture, cellular and extracellular composition, and transport properties of the osteocyte lacunocanalicular network via computational modelling and biomimetic bone tissue engineering.

Dr Bock’s research group is based at the Translational Research Institute (TRI) in Woolloongabba (Queensland, Australia) and applies bioengineering strategies to study the bone organ and tumours in this microenvironment with the ultimate goal of identifying new mechanisms that may ultimately help to understand, prevent and treat disease. The specific focus is to develop and use biomimetic 3D tailorable tissue model systems for in vitro and in vivo use, to understand the role of cellular and extracellular microenvironments in modulating normal and pathological states in bone, including cancer progression and therapy response. The research uses multiscale design principles of hierarchical ECM materials combined with biomaterials (multifunctional scaffolds, biopolymers, hydrogels), tissue engineering technologies (biofabrication, additive manufacturing, melt electrowriting), and multiscale correlative characterization techniques at the biological, mechanical and structural levels. The research aims to understand how biophysical and biochemical parameters from native tissues and bioengineered microenvironment models dynamically modulate the local mechanoresponsive interactions between cells and their ECMs, to understand key regulators of tissue-specific formation, architecture, composition and remodelling in healthy and diseased bone.

Background

Dr Bock obtained her M.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2007 from the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine (now known as University of Lorraine), in France, through a five-year European degree involving semester exchanges at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, in the USA. Her final engineering internship was done at Apatech Ltd (now Baxter) in London, UK, in bone graft substitutes. in 2007, Dr Bock worked for two years as a Research Assistant at the National Research Council in Bologna, Italy, on a 7th Framework large-scale European project on bone regeneration (FP7-MAGISTER). Dr Bock undertook her postgraduate studies in Australia in 2010 at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), at QUT, and received her PhD in 2014, developing electrospraying technologies applied to bone repair, under the guidance of Professors Tim Dargaville and Mia Woodruff. Her work led to publications in Progress in Polymer Science, Polymers, Tissue Engineering-C, European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, and Macromolecular Bioscience, which contributed to cementing the emerging field of polymer electrospraying for the controlled release of therapeutic molecules.

Dr Bock translated her tissue engineering knowledge into cancer research by doing her postdoctoral training at the Translational Research Institute (TRI), at QUT, under the guidance of Distinguished Professors Judith A. Clements and Dietmar W. Hutmacher, via a 4-year NHMRC ECR Fellowship, on microenvironment models in prostate cancer. Her fellowship led to papers in Bone Research, Biomaterials and Science Advances, developing 3D primary co-culture models and quantification methodologies, and discussing mechanisms of the adaptive response of androgen-deprived prostate cancer in bone and cancer cell osteomimicry mechanisms using patient-derived-xenografts. In 2021, Dr Bock started her Advance Queensland Industry Research Mid-Career Fellowship (AQIRF) in collaboration with industry partners to further develop the bioengineered tissue models using novel hydrogel formulations for high throughput bioprinting of the microenvironment of bone metastatic breast cancer. Dr Bock’s research has received national and international funding, from both industry (JJ Richards & Sons), government (ARC, NHMRC, Advance Queensland) and philanthropy (Lush UK, Cure Cancer, Cancer Australia, Princess Alexandra Research Foundation, Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia).

Dr Bock is a proud mother of four boys and a dedicated science educator, advocate for access to STEM opportunities to all children, teenagers, and young adults, in particular those from disadvantaged and LGBTIQA+ communities.