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Natalie Trevaskis

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Natalie Trevaskis

Professor

 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9538-549X

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

A range of projects are available to students broadly investigating the role of lymphatics in disease and drug delivery to lymphatics to treat disease. This includes formulation, drug delivery, lymph and plasma pharmacokinetic analysis, immunology and metabolism focusses.

20052026

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Position

Head of Lymphatic Medicine Laboratory, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Research interests
Prof Trevaskis’ research group is focussed on the role of lymphatics in inflammatory and 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. Prof 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 >100 research papers (>10000 cites, H index 38 in 2026) including in top journals Science Translational Medicine (2026), 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
Prof Trevaskis is an inventor on over 65 PCT for oral lipid prodrugs to target lymphatics granted in 2015-2026. The patents were licensed to Puretech Health in 2017 and spun out into a new company Seaport Therapeutics in 2024 with several candidates in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials.


Prizes
ProfTrevaskis received the Vice Chancellors Research of the Year Award for Monash University (2026), 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
Prof Trevaskis’ research group currently includes ~10 post-doctoral fellows, 12 PhD and 2 honours students. She has supervised >20 student completions. 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

Prof Trevaskis is the Deputy Associate Dean Research and Co-Head of the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Health Therapeutic Area at MIPS. Prof 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, Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Frontiers Drug Delivery.


Invited presentations
Prof Trevaskis regularly speaks at local and international conferences, and to pharmaceutical industry.

Monash teaching commitment

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

Research area keywords

  • Lymphatic Biology
  • lymphatics
  • Drug delivery
  • Pharmacokinetics
  • Obesity
  • Metabolic disease
  • Diabetes
  • Acute illness
  • organ failure
  • Formulation
  • Lipid Metabolism
  • lipid
  • lipid based self-assembled matrices, as novel drug delivery
  • Pharmacy
  • Pharmaceutical Science

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  1. SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or
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View all 24 projects
View all 97 research outputs
  • 1 Submissions to industry or govt committees, commissions and inquiries