Dr Maryam Nakhjavani is a translational biomedical researcher with over 20 years of experience spanning the pharmaceutical industry, academic research institutes, and higher education across Australia and Iran. She holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Adelaide and a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU), Tehran, together with a Diploma of Project Management from the Australian Institute of Management.

Her research centres on translational cancer therapeutics and drug delivery, spanning aptamer-based tumour targeting, lipid nanoparticle and mRNA vaccine formulation, and preclinical model development. She has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed ISI publications (58% as first author) and two book chapters, accruing over 1,520 citations (h-index 22; i10-index 31), and has secured more than AU$580,000 in competitive research funding as lead or named investigator, including an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (AU$191,000) and an Adelaide International Wildcard Scholarship (AU$98,000).

Prior to joining the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI) as a Research Fellow, Dr Nakhjavani held research and program leadership roles at CSL Seqirus (vaccine research), Deakin University’s IMPACT Institute, and the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research. She has supervised or co-supervised more than 10 PhD, Honours and PharmD students across four universities, and has served as Guest Editor for four international special issues in Pharmaceuticals and Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark.