Professor Fariba Dehghani’s ground-breaking research reduces food waste and creates new health technologies, with benefits ranging from improved nutrition to cancer prevention. 

Fariba’s expertise in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine sees her extract active compounds from natural sources to create innovative new products. Using discarded oranges, her research has revealed that the phytonutrients present in orange peels makes them the perfect package of every natural cancer inhibitor. 

Fariba and her team are now working with industry partners to develop an affordable product out of discarded oranges that can be used to keep cancer in remission following chemotherapy. She has also led the design of a new biodegradable polymer that reduces our reliance on plastic packaging, prevents waste by prolonging the shelf life of food, while also being a safer material for a number of medical devices and implants.  

For these discoveries and more, Fariba is a celebrated researcher having received a number of accolades for her collaborative innovation. She leads a multidisciplinary research team as director of the Australian Research Council for Australian Food Processing Industry in the 21st Century, as well as director of the Centre for Excellence in Advanced Food Enginomics at the University of Sydney.  

As co-inventor of more than 20 patents worldwide, Fariba encourages entrepreneurial engagement, resulting in four start-up companies founded by members of her research team.