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Plant nutrition, specialising in tropical root crops.

Since joining the University of Queensland in 1992, Dr. O'Sullivan has completed a series of projects characterising deficiencies and toxicities of mineral nutrients, in species of sweetpotato, aroids and yams, and identifying and remediating nutritional disorders in semi-subsistence production contexts in collaboration with project partners in Pacific Island countries.

After completing neurology training at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital(RBWH) in 1995, A/Prof O’Sullivan completed Fellowships in Movement Disorders at the Austin & Repatriation Medical Centre, Melbourne then the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and Middlesex Hospital in London, UK. He was awarded a doctorate in Medicine from Melbourne University in 2000 for studies into surgery for Parkinson’s disease. He returned to the RBWH in 2001 and set up the Movement Disorders Clinical Service which he directs including botulinum toxin and later Friedreich's ataxia clinics, and co-ordinating the Huntington's disease multidisciplinary clinic. Through these clinics he has established collaborations with local, interstate and international researchers in the fields of Parkinson's disease, and other movement disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. He is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at UQ Centre for Clinical Research, currently co-director of the Neurodegenertion Clinical Research Group. A/Prof O'Sullivan past President of the Movement Disorders Society of Australia and New Zealand (MDSANZ), having previously served as Chair of the MDSANZ Clinical Trials and Research Group. He has been is on the Council of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurolgists (ANZAN) and previously chaired the ANZAN Scientific Program Committee.

Overview

Professor Michael O’Sullivan is a neuroscientist, neurologist and group leader at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB). His main research interest is the neurobiology of brain injury, with an emphasis on mechanisms of resilience and recovery of the brain after injury. His previous work has developed understanding in two broad areas:

• The cognitive neuroscience of memory and cognitive control – and how distributed and dynamic networks in the brain support these functions, which are often affected by injury.
• How injury alters network structure and function leading to symptoms in day-to-day life - and intrinsic mechanisms of neural adaptation that modulate the effect of injury

At the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, O’Sullivan is building a research program on cellular and molecular events that influence adaptation and recovery, including the role of innate immunity and glial cells. This program includes novel approaches to neuroprotection and the role of astrocytes as key regulators of glutamate and neuroinflammation. A major theme is identification of therapeutic targets, and evaluation of disease progression or treatment response in vivo, using advanced human imaging with MRI, PET and novel radiotracers. In addition to his Institute work, O’Sullivan leads clinical and biomarker projects in stroke and traumatic brain injury and is a member of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in vascular mechanisms of cognitive impairment.

The group is at the forefront in the application of advanced techniques to investigate brain structure and function in vivo, including diffusion MRI and tractography, the use of functional MRI and EEG to examine to examine dynamic network interactions, and PET to examine neurochemistry.

Supervision

Professor O’Sullivan supervises PhD projects across multiple research areas, including clinical science, cognitive neuroscience, animal models and computational neuroscience (such as machine learning and deep learning algorithms for diagnosis and prediction of prognosis). Expressions of interest from potential PhD and honours students are welcome.

Belinda is a post-doc researcher leading international scale research about rural health systems, workforce capacity building, access, quality and distribution at The University of Queensland Rural Clinical School.

Belinda did her PhD with the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life Survey (MABEL), applying the large longitudinal panel survey of Australian doctors to research rural outreach service patterns by specialists. She continues to work in the MABEL research team, collaborating between Melbourne University, University Queensland and Monash colleagues to support the rural work stream.

She was the Chief Investigator of the Monash Medical School rural medical workforce tracking study (2016-2019), producing substantial new evidence about the design effectiveness of the Monash rural medical program, attracting new funding for end to end rural medical training from the Murray Darling Medical Network.

Belinda was the Director of Research and Evaluation in the Office of the National Rural Health Commissioner (2018-2019). She played a lead role in consulting and developing national Taskforce Advice and brokered a national evaluation framework for the Pathway, along with supporting rural allied health policy options.

She worked with rural wonca in 2018 to lead a WHO consultancy producing a Checklist for implementing rural pathways for training and supporting health workers in low and middle income countries, of significant global interest for supporting stakeholders implement training in all disciplines, from any starting point.

Belinda has been the CI of Education Research Grants about rural GP supervisors and is leading partnership projects with GPSA about the quality and distribution of the GP supervisor workforce.

She graduated from the NSW Public Health Officer Training Program at NSW Health in 2002, after completing her MPH (Hons) in the area of tobacco control. Before that, she worked as a physiotherapy clinician at the Austin and in private practice.

She has nearly twenty years’ experience of developing and implementing workplace-based training and development to produce health workers with the right skills, distributed and working in areas of community need. Her experience spans writing competencies, developing training tools, training needs assessment and planning and formative and summative assessment.

Belinda supervises Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours), PhD students, and supports people doing projects which advance knowledge of rural health systems.

Belinda's PhD: "Rural outreach by specialist doctors in Australia"

Monash University - APA, PPA Awards and Advancing Women's Research Awards http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/1268685

WHO Rural Pathways Checklist https://www.globalfamilydoctor.com/News/RuralRound-upLandmarkGlobalRuralFramework.aspx

MABEL longitudinal study of Australian doctors www.mabel.org.au

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University

Member RFDS Victoria Research Committee

Eoin O'Sullivan, MD, PhD is a Consultant Nephrologist (Senior Staff Specialist) at Metro North, and Lecturer at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland and Associate at QIMR Berghofer. He has a diverse academic background, with degrees in medicine from University College Cork, Ireland , and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, UK, where he specialized in the biology of senescence in kidney injury. Dr. O'Sullivan also holds multiple certifications in nephrology and a Masters in medical education.

His research focuses on kidney fibrosis and cellular senescence, with over 52 publications and 10 patent applications. His work has been cited more than 15,000 times, and he has contributed to major advancements in therapeutic strategies for chronic kidney disease. He collaborates extensively with industry partners to develop anti-fibrotic therapies, with several of his discoveries leading to potential new drug targets.

In addition to his research, Dr. O'Sullivan is actively involved in medical education and mentorship, involved with ANZSN Educational an scientific comittees, with national level educational experiences both in Australia and in UK.

Current Research focus:

Theme 1. Senescence

Using single cell RNA-Seq techniques to discover therapeutic targets for people living with Kidney Disease.

Theme 2: Translational Data analysis

Machine learning and AI approaches to clinical data interpretation, prognosis, decision support.

Professor Obermair is the Director of Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer Research (QCGC Research). He is a Professor of Gynaecological Oncology since 2007, a Senior Medical Officer at Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital and a Visiting Medical Officer at St Andrews War Memorial Hospital and Buderim Private Hospital. He holds an Honorary title of Professor at UQ since 2006.

Professor Obermair is an internationally recognised leader in gynaecological oncology research and treatment and has lead the research team at QCGC Research since establishing it in 2003.

Dr Nchafatso G. Obonyo (BSc Hons, MB.ChB, DTM&H, MD/PhD, FCRcert)

Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Critical Care Research Group-The Prince Charles Hospital, Institute of Molecular Bioscience-The University of Queensland. Main research focus is cardiac critical care and sepsis research.

Visiting Fellow in the Academic Division, Medical Engineering Research Facility, Queenlsand University of Technology. Fellow of the Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders (IDeAL) at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya; Global Health Fellow, Wellcome Trust Centre for Global Health Research at Imperial College London,UK.

Recipient of the 2023 Africa Top-40 Under-40 Science Award and the 2023 African Professional in Australia of the Year Award.

Adrian Oehmen is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland. He leads research in the area of bioprocess engineering, particularly focussing on wastewater treatment, resource recovery and sustainable materials and processes. His research interests include enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR or BioP) and P recovery, microbial entrapment, acid mine drainage and metal recovery, biopolymer (polyhydroxyalkanoate – PHA) production and metabolic modelling as applied to mixed and co-cultures of microorganisms. He has published more than 100 papers in international scientific journals, led or collaborated on more than 30 research projects (many with industry). He is active within the International Water Association (IWA), serving on specialist group and conference committees and is an Associate Editor of Water Research.

I studied Technical Mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology. I also earned a Master's degree in Law and I finished the first ("non-clinical") part of Medical Studies at the University of Vienna. I earned my PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Vienna in 2007. My PhD advisor was Christian Schmeiser, my co-advisor was Peter Markowich. I spent several months at the University of Buenos Aires working with C. Lederman and at the ENS-Paris rue d'Ulm in the group of B. Perthame.

Before coming to UQ, I held post-doc positions at the Wolfgang Pauli Insitute (Vienna), University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (RICAM). In 2013 I won an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). I was a post-doc researcher in the group of Alex Mogilner first at UC Davis, then at the Courant Institute of Math. Sciences (New York University).

I moved to UQ in Dec. 2016. More recently, in 2024, I spent 4 months at the department of Mathemetics of the U. of Heidelberg as a visiting scientist.

Dr. Melanie Oey is currently Research Officer at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience in the Group of Prof. Ben Hankamer. She was born in Berlin, Germany, and went to the University of Potsdam to study Biochemistry. During her studies she worked at the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany, where she also received her Ph.D. in 2009 for her work on the production of lysin antibiotics in tobacco plants. In the same year she came to Australia to work at the University of Queensland, and has since then developed new technologies which are base for the newly launched "Breakthrough Science Program in Algal Biomedicine" at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

Her research interestes are:

- High value product production (e.g. vaccines, antibiotics, pain killer) in Algae via chloroplast and nuclear transformation

- Improvement of bio-hydrogen production from microalgae

- Development of new molecular tools for microalgae

Her work has been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Dr Stina Oftedal is an accredited practicing dietitian and postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Research Centre (QCPRRC). Stina completed her undergraduate degree at Queensland University of Technology in 2010, and completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2016. Stina's PhD explored the association of modifiable health behaviours (diet and physical activity) on growth and body composition in preschool-aged children with cerebral palsy, and this continues to be the focus of her postdoctoral work. She also has an interest in infant feeding and diet quality.

Dr. Charles Okafor is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Health Services Research, University of Queensland. His work involves the economic evaluation of healthcare technologies, and the application of health economics in public health and health services research. He previously worked in the Pharmaceutical Industry as a Research and Development Manager.

He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree (BPharm) from the University of Nigeria; a Master of Clinical Pharmacy degree (MPharm) from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; and a PhD in Health Economics from Griffith University.

Charles is a member of the Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi); the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR); and the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE).

Pauline has extensive knowledge and research experience in Molecular biology, Plant tissue culture, transformation and gene modification using CRIPSR/Cas9. Pauline has worked on both cereals and legumes. Her interests are in understanding and underpinning molecular mechanisms used by extremophiles to survive harsh conditions.

Pauline is currently working on understanding rice domestication by using gene editing techniques to modify agronomically important traits in both wild and cultivated rice species. Her ultimate goal is to see high end laboratory research transition to benefit the consumer/breeders/ farmers.