About Us
High tech solutions in healthcare.
Nanogel’s four founding female scientists met while employed by the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney.
After leaving CSIRO, we kept in touch. Our meetings often focused on a pain-relief product we wanted to make. Using our knowledge of chemistry, nanotechnology and biology, we have now developed a naturally-occurring, active pain-relief ingredient in a nanostructured gel that can be further formulated as a cream, gel or spray for a number of topical applications. This product enables deep penetration of the active ingredient through the skin where it may reduce inflammation and alleviate pain in a broad range of chronic and inflammatory conditions. Volunteers from our families and friends, who variously suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, sciatic pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and pain from shoulder and back surgery, have been using the product with considerable success.
After many requests to commercialise our product, we established NanoGel Pty Ltd in December 2019. The “o” in our NanoGel logo is an image of a polarised light microscopy pattern from our nanostructured gel that contains the active pain-relief ingredient.
Our team’s extensive experience from working with nucleic acids, antibodies, nanoparticles and biosensors also enables us to work as scientific consultants to assist companies endeavouring to acquire and supply diagnostic kits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Minoo Moghaddam
Co-founder and Director
Dr Minoo Moghaddam is a cofounder of NanoGel Pty Ltd, and also a Director. She has over 25 years of research experience in nanotechnologies for medical applications. She served as a senior principal research scientist and leader of the nanomedicine group at CSIRO until 2016. Her work at CSIRO on prodrug lipid-based nanomedicine was focused on developing cancer therapeutics and imaging materials for early diagnosis of cancer, and in 2016 she founded the company NanoMed Pty Ltd to commercialise this platform technology as various nanomedicine products. Dr Moghaddam is the co-inventor of several families of patents. Her co-invention on photo-crosslinked hyaluronic acid in her early career in Japan has now been developed and commercialised to the product Gel-one® for the treatment of osteoarthritis.
Penny Bean
Biologist
Ms Penny Bean is a cell biologist with over 35 years of research experience whilst employed by CSIRO. She began her career by generating monoclonal antibodies, firstly to map the antigenic sites of the Hong Kong flu strains and then extracellular matrix proteins which she used in cell interactions studies in a Cardiac Technology and Biomaterials project. Penny later developed skills in embryonic stem-cell technology and molecular biology for the analyses of gene expression of pancreatic progenitors and inflammation markers in transplantation studies of these progenitors. While at CSIRO, Penny also worked with biotech companies to generate new antibodies, including the production of anti-cancer antibodies for Biosceptre, and developed and conducted immunocytochemistry assays for many external clients, including immunoassays for a gene therapy project with Mayne Pharma.
Dr Maxine McCall
Co-founder
Dr Maxine McCall is a co-founder of NanoGel Pty Ltd. She has over 25 years of research expertise in nanotechnologies for health applications. From 2008-2014 she developed and led CSIRO’s Nanosafety research program which was a multi-disciplinary program to determine the effects of manufactured nanomaterials on human health and the natural environment. She was CSIRO’s representative on the Australian Government’s Nanotechnology HSE Working Group, and coordinated the large Australian consortium that participated in an international OECD program to test the safety of manufactured nanomaterials. Dr McCall is now an independent Nanosafety Consultant.
Ariya Iwato
Director and CFO
Mr Ariya Iwato is a Director of NanoGel Pty Ltd, and also its Chief Financial Officer. He has an extensive background in financial markets, working with some of the largest commercial and investment banking companies in the world. With over 10 years of experience, he brings a wealth of business knowledge and acumen to the team.
Dr Nelly Gong
Research Scientist
Dr Nelly Gong is a dedicated research scientist with extensive experience in the areas of synthetic and analytical chemistry, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, and in vivo animal work. She has performed research on nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery for over ten years.
