ProfessorMichael Breadmore

Analytical chemistry rewards creative thinkers who see opportunities, not barriers, between disciplines, according to Professor Michael Breadmore. Michael and his team at the University of Tasmania are developing 'lab-on-a-chip' portable analytical devices that allow users to put a sample in and get an answer out on the spot. These devices have the potential to revolutionise clinical, forensic, environmental and industrial applications.

Lab-on-a-chip technology

Analytical chemistry goes out of the lab for real-world, real-time analysis

Professor Michael Breadmore is an analytical chemist and former ARC Fellow (QPD, QEII, FT) at the University of Tasmania's College of Sciences and Engineering. 

Quick to dispel any ideas that analytical chemists have a limited research field, Professor Breadmore points out, 'I use ideas and technology from all kinds of areas. You can see this best in what's been nicknamed 'lab-on-a-chip' technology, which involves measuring complex mixtures of chemicals on a miniature scale. 

'My recent interests have focused on out-of-lab systems to provide timely chemical information for a range of applications.  Rapid, screening of explosives, illicit drugs and pharmacueticals, is important where the information needs to be obtained within minutes to make an informed a decision.  Likewise, autonomus and continuous collection of data over longer periods of time is important to construct spatio-temporal maps of our water chemistry and how it is changing over time. The timeframe upon which the information is needed always defines our technical solution.'   

'You need to be creative to do this work [Some of our] best breakthroughs have come from pursuing ideas that might be considered crazy. I encourage that.'

'The more creative you are, the more interesting and exciting research you can do. You still need to be able to think in a logical and structural manner, but my own and my team's best breakthroughs have come from pursuing ideas that might be considered crazy. I encourage that.'

Professor Breadmore and his team have developed two systems that have made it to market.  Grey Scan's ETD-100 is the first and only instrumentat in the world to detect the full range of homemade inorganic explosives.  Eco Detections Ion-Q provides continuous monitoring of upto 14 water chemistry parameters.

'My advice to new researchers is to keep working on the things that shouldn't work - ignore the boundaries other people impose on your area of research. Forget working outside the box - there is no box.' 

Fast-fact: Professor Breadmore, along with colleague Professor Emily Hilder, were two of only three Australian academics to be recognised in Analytical Scientist magazine's inaugural Top 40 Under 40 Power List in 2014. Since then, he has featured frequently in their power list as a global influencer in analytical chemistry.


Professor Breadmore received his PhD in 2001 from the University of Tasmania before undertaking his first postdoctoral position at the University of Virginia, USA to work on portable analytical technology for genetic diagnostics. He then moved to the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he developed electrophoretic methods for therapeutic drug monitoring of anti-fungal and retroviral drugs, with the methods implemented routinely in the adjacent hospital service lab. He then spent eight months working with delta DOT, a small biotechnology instrumentation company, and helped design their commercial capillary electrophoresis instrument. In 2004, Professor Breadmore returned to Australia as an ARC postdoctoral fellow, in 2009 was awarded an ARC QEII Fellowship and in 2014 began an ARC Future Fellowship.