Associate Professor Claudia Di Bella is an academic orthopaedic surgeon with a specific interest in advanced technologies for musculoskeletal regeneration.
Associate Professor Di Bella is the leader of the Cartilage Regeneration Program of Research at the University of Melbourne (Australia), focused on the use of advanced 3D printing technologies, including surgical 3D bioprinting, robotics and stem cells for musculoskeletal regeneration. Associate Professor Di Bella was the recipient of the 2017 Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Senior Lecturer Fellowship and the 2020 NHMRC-MRFF Emerging Leadership Investigator Grant (EL1). Associate Professor Di Bella has led her team to successfully secure more than 20 national peer reviewed grants, reinforced and strengthened national and international collaboration with key players in the field, and strongly contributed to the advances of the Biofab3D, the first Australian biofabrication hub embedded in the hospital setting. The successes of Associate Professor Di Bella’s team have been also recognised internationally (2018 World congress of Cartilage Regeneration: winner of the Award for the most innovative work in orthoregeneration) and nationally (Finalist at the prestigious NSW Eureka prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research and winner of the Veski Innovator of the Year 2018 with her “team Biopen”), and showcased by national media such as ABC news, Channel 10 “The Project” and National Geographic.
Associate Professor Di Bella is Vice Chair in the Board of Directors of the Australian Orthopaedic Association Research Foundation, faculty member of the Academic Section of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and chair of their annual conference.
Associate Professor Di Bella is very passionate about gender equality in STEM-M, she is a mentor in the academic surgery program of the University of Melbourne as well as a mentor for women in medicine and women in surgery nationally.