DrMike Wu

Dr. Chia Lun (Mike) Wu is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's School of Biomedical Engineering, based at the Charles Perkins Centre. He also co-leads the Mechanobiology and Biomechanics Laboratory, supported by the Snow Fellowship. His research combines biology, engineering, and clinical science to improve the way we detect and treat blood clotting disorders. After earning a First-Class Honours degree and PhD in immunopharmacology from the University of Queensland, Dr. Wu completed training in research commercialisation to help translate scientific discoveries into real-world solutions. He has mentored over 30 students and staff and has built collaborative projects across research institutes, hospitals, and industry.

Dr. Wu's research has led to major discoveries, including a Nature-published study revealing that red blood cells-long thought to be passive-can actively drive microvascular blood clots, especially under stress conditions like stroke and diabetes. His work is shedding new light on diabetes-associated microangiopathies, where small vessels become blocked and contribute to severe complications such as kidney failure, vision loss, and limb ischemia. He has also helped develop safer blood-thinning agents inspired by Australian bush ticks and invented SmartClot-a paper-based blood test that detects clotting risk from a single drop of blood. This technology, which won the 2025 PERIscope Commercialisation Prize, is now being explored for emergency use in ambulances, rural health, and aviation.

Currently, Dr. Wu leads three interconnected research streams: (1) understanding how blood cell function breaks down in diabetes-related microvascular disease; (2) developing rapid diagnostic tools to monitor clotting risk in real time; and (3) discovering new drugs that block harmful cell responses to mechanical stress. His long-term goal is to create better tools to detect, monitor, and prevent blood clots-especially in people with diabetes and other high-risk conditions-to help reduce strokes, heart attacks, and amputations.