Position

Head of Lymphatic Medicine Laboratory, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Associate Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Research interests
Dr Trevaskis’ research group is focussed on the role of lymphatics in immune-metabolic disease and drug delivery to the lymphatics to treat these diseases.
The lymphatic system has physiological functions in dietary fat absorption, immune response and fluid balance. Importantly, the lymphatic system has recently been found to play important roles in a range of diseases including immune and inflammatory diseases, cancers and metabolic disease. Dr Trevaskis’ research group is particularly focussed on understanding the mechanisms by which lymphatic dysfunction contributes to diseases such as arthritis, pancreatitis, neuroinflammation, atherosclerosis, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Her group is also advancing the design of drug delivery systems to target the lymphatics and treat these diseases including orally administered lipid prodrugs and parenterally administered nano-systems such as liposomes, lipoprotein mimetics and polymer systems.

Research publications
Dr Trevaskis has published >65 research papers (>5000 cites, H index 27, FWCI 3.2 in 2021) including in top journals Nature Metabolism (2021), Nature (2020), Nature Nano (2020), Angewandte Chemie (2016) and Journal of Controlled Release (x4 front covers).

She has contributed to highly cited invited reviews on lipid based and lymphatic drug delivery including in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery x2, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews x3 and Pharmacological Reviews.

Patents
Dr Trevaskis is an inventor on over 12 PCT for oral lipid prodrugs to target lymphatics granted in 2015-2019. The patents were licensed to Puretech Health in 2017 and further sub-licensed to Boehringer Ingelheim.

Prizes
Dr Trevaskis received the MIPS Future Research Leader Award (2018), AK McIntyre prize from the Australian Physiological Society (2015), Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for thesis excellence (2006) and Gold Medal for top BPharm student (2001) at Monash University.

Research team supervision
Dr Trevaskis’ research group currently includes 2 post-doctoral fellows, 7 PhD and 2 honours students. She has supervised 13 student completions (8 PhD, 5 Honours). Her PhD students have received major international awards including two Lipid-Based Drug Delivery student awards from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and an Oral Drug Delivery award from the Controlled Release Society. All have secured employment in industry or academia.

Professional involvement
Dr Trevaskis has been a member of Australian Physiological Society (AuPS) council and led the local organizing committee for their annual meeting in 2017. She co-led the organizing committee for the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association (APSA) annual meeting in 2019. Dr Trevaskis has organized annual Melbourne Lymphatic Symposiums since 2016.
She is an editor for Pharmaceutical Research and the Journal of Pharmaceutical Science. 

Within Monash, Dr Trevaskis currently serves as a category B member on the MIPS animal ethics committee. She is Secretary of Her Research Matters Ewhich aims to foster the development of women in science at Monash. She also sits on Faculty Education Committees and is the alternate Associate Dean Research.

Invited presentations
Dr Trevaskis presented invited symposiums at the International Lymphatic Forum (2021), Gordon Research Conference on Lymphatics (2020), Australasian Vascular Biology Meeting (2019), Australian Neuro-Gastrointestinal Motility Association (2017), FIP world congress (2015) and Australian Physiological Society meeting (2013).

Unit coordinator of PHR1022 How Medicines Work 2, Master of Pharmacy 

Lecturer in Pharmacokinetics and Drug Delivery in PHR1022 How Medicines Work 2, Master of Pharmacy 

Lecturer in Drug Delivery and Formulation in PHR2021 How Medicines Work 3, Master of Pharmacy

Lecturer in Pharmacokinetics adn Drug Delivery in PHR1011 Bridge to Practice 1, Master of Pharmacy

Lecturer in Drug Delivery and Formulation in PHR1101 Bridge to Practice 2, Master of Pharmacy

Supervisor for Bachelor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science student lab placements

Supervisor for Honours Degree in Pharmaceutical Science

Supervisor for Enhanced Doctoral Training Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences