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The first half of my academic career was focused on neuroscience research. My PhD looked at the modification of processing of painful information in the spinal cord by analgesics. Following my PhD, I investigated the electrical activity and properties of neurons in the amygdala, a brain region attributed with processing and mediating emotions and emotional memories. In addition I became interested in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is important for emotion regulation. I studied mechanisms involved in synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, with a focus on the role of potassium channels, including SK channels.

For the second half of my career I have moved into a more teaching-focused role. This was first as a casual academic in the School of Biomedical Sciences, from 2014-2020, and since 2021 as a teaching-focused lecturer, with my current research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. My research interests are primarily now in looking at emotions, emotion regulation and motivation regulation during learning, and how these can be harnessed to improve student experiences and learning outcomes. I'm also extremely interested in the development of transferable skills in undergraduates, such as science communication, critical thinking, and cultural capability, in preparation for their future lives and careers.

Honours projects are currently available with myself and others in the SBMS Biomedical Education Research Group, looking at:

• The use of motivation strategies to improve undergraduate student experiences and learning outcomes.
• Effective emotion regulation strategies in first year undergraduate students.

Itia is an optical physicist and neuroscientist recently awarded an ARC DECRA fellowship. She is based at the Queensland Brain Institute in Brisbane. Her research focuses on studying the zebrafish brain using advanced techniques such as whole brain calcium imaging and specialized light shaping devices. Notably, she has pioneered the application of optical tweezers to simulate the zebrafish inner-ear's responses to acceleration and hearing, offering novel insights into sensory processing mechanisms. She has also engineered imaging systems for conducting optogenetic experiments with real-time feedback in zebrafish models. Beyond technique development, Itia explores the noradrenergic system in zebrafish, investigating its pivotal role in modulating sensory functions. Her interdisciplinary approach combines optical physics with neuroscience to advance our understanding of neural circuits and sensory perception mechanisms in zebrafish.

Dr Jenny Fung is a senior postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer of pharmacology course at the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS), UQ. She is an emerging researcher in the reproductive disease field with experience in molecular biology techniques, genetics, functional genomics, statistical and high-throughput computational skills, ex-vivo and in-vivo models of diseases, as well as industry engagement. In 2013, she was awarded a PhD at UQ and continued post-doctoral research in Professor Grant Montgomery's laboratory at QIMRB and IMB, in the field of genetics and genomics with a focus on functional genomics studies in complex diseases and a special interest in endometriosis. Her research has led to the seminal publication identifying the genetics of gene expression in endometrium and the role of gene regulation underlying endometriosis-related pathogenesis. In 2019, she joined Professor Trent Woodruff’s laboratory at SBMS, UQ to work on immunotherapy development for cancer through funding from Pfizer, where she performed immune cell functional assays and genomics analyses. Dr Fung is in a unique position to perform both the wet and dry lab components of multi-disciplinary research. She is currently co-leading multiple projects, where she is contributing her expertise on genetics and functional genomics on immunology to discover target genes and putative pathways underlying disease progression, with an ultimate goal to develop potential effective drugs for reproductive and brain disorders.

Dr Elise Gane graduated with a Bachelor of Physiotherapy (Honours Class I) and a University Medal for academic achievement from The University of Queensland in 2008. She worked as a physiotherapist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital (2009-2013), a quaternary public hospital, treating complex patients across the continuum of care from Intensive Care and post-surgical wards to inpatient rehabilitation and outpatient services. In 2014, Elise commenced her PhD with The University of Queensland, focussed on measuring the musculoskeletal side effects at the neck and shoulder that result from neck dissection surgery for head and neck cancer. Following the awarding of her PhD in early 2018, Elise was employed as a post doctoral researcher at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre (UQ) exploring return to work and social roles after road traffic crash. Since January 2019, Elise has fulfilled the role of Physiotherapy Conjoint Research Fellow between the School of Health and Rehabiltiation Sciences (UQ) and the Princess Alexandra Hospital Physiotherapy Department. In this role, Elise mentors physiotherapists in health service-based research (both qualitative and quantitative) whilst also pursuing her own research interests, including a telehealth cancer exercise program. She teaches a research course in systematic review methodology to students in the Physiotherapy Graduate Entry Masters program.

Elise's areas of research interest include codesign, implementation science, allied health led-models of care, oncology rehabiltiation, lymphoedema, chronic disease, physical activity (particularly in rehabilitation settings, chronic disease, or the workplace), and musculoskeletal health.

Professor Christian Gericke is Clinical Dean and Professor of Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Director of Research and Neurologist at Calvary Mater Newcastle, Honorary Neurologist at the John Hunter Hospital, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Fiji National University. He is the Convener of the Specialist Medical Review Council (SMRC), Australian Government, a Member of the Queensland Neurology/Neurosurgery Medical Assessment Tribunal, and regularly acts as an Independent Medical Expert for the Supreme Courts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, and the Queensland Coroners Court. He consults privately in Brisbane.

Before this, he was the Clinical Director of Neurology at The Prince Charles Hospital, Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland, Executive Director of Medical Services, Director of Research and Consultant Neurologist at Cairns Hospital and Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Public Health at James Cook University. He also chaired the Far North Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).

From 2013 to 2016, he led the Wesley Research Institute, a non-profit medical research institute based at the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, as its CEO and Director of Research. In 2016/2017, he spent a sabbatical as Consultant Neurologist with a special interest in Epilepsy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Since 2013, he has been an Honorary Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.

From 2010 to 2012, he was Professor of Public Health and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care for the English South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC).

From 2006 to 2010, he was Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Adelaide. He also held various roles for the Australian Commonwealth and State Governments, including as Medical Director for Safety and Quality for the State of Tasmania.

From 2003 to 2006, he was Senior Research Fellow /Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Systems Research and Management at Berlin University of Technology, one of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies hubs. He has experience working as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company and as an advisor to the European Commission, WHO, GIZ and the World Bank. His expertise and research interests are in health systems research and health policy, health services research, and the economic evaluation of health interventions. He initiated and directed a new Master's programme in Health Economics and Policy at the University of Adelaide. He is an Editorial Board Member of Frontiers in Neurology, Australian Health Review, Internal Medicine Journal and PLOS ONE.

Prof Gericke studied medicine at the Free University of Berlin and spent one year as a DAAD scholar at Tufts and Harvard Medical Schools in Boston, Massachusetts. He was awarded an M.D. research doctorate (magna cum laude) in cognitive neurology from the Free University of Berlin. After completing clinical specialist training in neurology, epileptology and clinical neurophysiology at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin and the University Hospitals of Strasbourg and Geneva, he studied tropical medicine at the University of Aix-Marseille, obtained an M.P.H. from the University of Cambridge, an M.Sc. in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, an MBA from Deakin University, and a higher doctorate (Habilitation) in health systems research from Berlin University of Technology. He also holds an Advanced Diploma in Medical Law from King's Inns School of Law in Dublin and is a Certified Independent Medical Examiner (CIME) with the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (ABIME).

He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in Neurology, the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FAFPHM), the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin), the European Academy of Neurology (FEAN), the American Neurological Association (FANA), the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and Associate Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (AFRACMA).

He is the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists (ANZAN) Therapeutics Committee, Chair of the Ethics Section of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Research Committee and a Member of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Standards and Best Practice Council. He also serves on the Federal Council of the Australian Medical Association (AMA).

Dr. Richard Gordon leads a multi-disciplinary, industry-partnered research program in Translational Neuroscience which integrates immunology, drug development, pharmacology, metabolomics and microbial metagenomics. His group aims to understand and therapeutically target key pathological mechanisms which drive the onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Their work combines target validation studies in human patients with mechanistic insights from disease models to develop and test novel therapeutic strategies that can be translated towards clinical trials.

Key research themes within this program include:

• Understanding how chronic immune and inflammasome activation contribute to neurodegeneration in the CNS
• The role of gut dysbiosis and gastrointestinal dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease pathophysiology
• Therapeutic targeting of the gut-brain axis for neuroprotection
• Drug discovery, development and repositioning for novel therapeutic targets
• Discovery and validation of clinical biomarkers for PD and ALS
• Clinical trials for disease-modifying therapeutic strategies

Professor Jürgen Götz (PhD, Dr. habil, FAHMS, GAICD) is Foundation Chair of Dementia Research, Director of the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research at the Queensland Brain Institute (University of Queensland), NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Ultrasound Team Leader. In 2023 he became the Lesleigh Green - Bill and Nancy Green Endowed Chair in Dementia Research. Jürgen Götz performed undergraduate studies at the Biocenter of the University of Basel, before joining the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Georges Köhler to obtain his PhD degree in immunology. Subsequently, he took up postdoctoral positions at UCSF (San Francisco) and Sandoz Ltd (now Novartis, Basel), and worked as Research Group Leader (venia legendi, Dr. habil.) at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Before taking up his current position, Jürgen Götz was a Professor and Chair of Molecular Biology at the University of Sydney.

Jürgen Götz is a highly cited researcher (Clarivate) and an expert in basic and translational research in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how Tau and Aβ cause neurodegeneration, using transgenic and cellular models, and exploring low-intensity ultrasound as a novel treatment modality for AD and other brain diseases (>220 publications, including in leading journals such as Science, Cell, Lancet and Neuron; h-index = 86, 27,800+ citations, Google Scholar). Jürgen Götz and his team have built a clinical trial-ready therapeutic ultrasound device and started a first-in-human safety trial in 12 Alzheimer patients (April 2023).

I am a Research Fellow and Leader in Pain Relief Innovation at AIBN, UQ. My research interests sit at the interface of drug delivery and the pain field. My overarching research goal is to improve the quality of day to day life of patients suffering from chronic pain, by applying nanotechnology to the development of novel highly effective pain-killer products for improving chronic pain management. I am looking for highly motivated postgraduate students.

I also enjoy volunteering within the academic community, most notably as Head of the SBMS ECR Committee and Treasurer for The Queensland Chinese Association of Scientists and Engineers (QCASE). I am currently serving as guest editor of Pain Research and Management.and JoVE Methods Collection.

Research Interests

My research is focusing on nano-based drug formulation and development to improve chronic pain management. I have a broad and unique background in both pharmacology and drug delivery systems, with specific expertise in the development of novel drug products and testing their analgesic efficacy and safety including pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies. To date, I have established five different techniques to produce painkiller–loaded nanoparticles and nanofibers aimed at improving pain relief for patients where currently available pain-killers either lack efficacy or produce dose-limiting side-effects. For example, there is a small and very potent peptide that has been on the market as a chemical for over 10 years but which cannot be used as a therapeutic due to its short half-life and poor oral bioavailability. In the form of my nanoparticles, that peptide has the potential to become an oral treatment for improving pain management in patients whose pain is currently poorly alleviated by clinically used pain-killers. I have significant expertise in the use of rodent pain models to assess novel analgesics, and I have received excellent training in conducting research in accordance with the stringent requirements of the Quality Management System (quality accreditations (GLP and ISO17025) from NATA). Together, my knowledge, skills and experience will facilitate the efficient translation of my research from the bench to the clinic.

The current focus of the lab is on the development of drug-products to solve one of the largest unmet medical needs in the pain field through use of sustainable materials. 1) We are developing multifunctional sutures including biodegradable pain relief sutures. 2) We are developing my innovative novel nanoparticles, which deliver innate-immune targeting peptides for the treatment of cancer and cancer-related pain. We are establishing a platform for the development of safe, effective delivery for other small molecule peptide drugs in general to pave their way to clinical trials. 3) Our research also investigates the role of C5a and C3a, estrogen, etc. in the pathogenesis of chronic pain including neuropathic pain, cancer-related pain, low back pain and OA pain.

We work in collaboration with other leading Australian and international researchers to stay at the forefront of the drug delivery systems field and the pain field. We also provide preclinical evaluation of novel compounds and formulations.

MBChB FRCA FANZCA FFICM PhD

Queensland Brain Institute

Dr Massimo A. Hilliard received his PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Biology in 2001 from the University of Naples, Italy. His experimental work, performed at the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics of the CNR (Italian National Council of Research), was aimed at understanding the neuronal and genetic basis of aversive taste behavior (bitter taste) in C. elegans.

During his first postdoc at the University of California, San Diego, using the Ca2+ indicator Cameleon he published the first direct visualisation of chemosensory activity in C. elegans neurons. In his second postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco and at The Rockefeller University, he switched from neuronal function to neuronal development, focusing in particular on how neurons establish and orient their polarity with respect to extracellular cues.

From September 2007, he is at the Queensland Brain Institute where he established an independent laboratory.

Paul W. Hodges DSc MedDr PhD BPhty(Hons) FAA FACP APAM(Hon) is an National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow (Level 3), Professor and Director of the Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHeR) at The University of Queensland (UQ). He is lead chief investigator on an NHMRC Synergy Grant that includes colleagues from the Universities of Queensland, Adelaide and South Australia, and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Paul is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, which is a Fellowship of the nation’s most distinguished scientists, elected by their peers for outstanding research that has pushed back the frontiers of knowledge. He is also a Fellow of the Australian College of Physiotherapists, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science, and was made an Honoured member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, their highest honour.

Paul is a recognised world leader in movement control, pain and rehabilitation. His unique comprehensive research approach from molecular biology to brain physiology and human function has led to discoveries that have transformed understanding of why people move differently in pain. His innovative research has also led to discoveries of changes in neuromuscular function across a diverse range of conditions from incontinence to breathing disorders. These observations have been translated into effective treatments that have been tested and implemented internationally.

Paul has received numerous national and international research awards that span basic and clinical science. These include the premier international award for spine research (ISSLS Prize) on five occasions; three times in Basic Science (2006, 2011, 2019) and twice in Clinical Science (2018, 2021). International awards in basic science include the SusanneKlein-Vogelbach Award (2010) and the Delsys Prize for Innovation in Electromyography (2009). National medical research awards include the NHMRC Achievement Award (2011). He has also received national community-based leadership awards including the Young Australian of the Year Award in Science and Technology (1997), Future Summit Australian Leadership Award (2010), and Emerging Leader Award (Next 100 Awards, 2009).

Paul is the Chair of the Terminology Task Force for the International Association for the Study of Pain, Chair of the Consensus for Experimental Design in Electromypgraphy for the International Society for Electrophysiology and Kinesiology and has been the Chair/Co-Chair for several major international conferences. He has led major international consortia to bring together leaders from multiple disciplines to understand pain.

Dr. Aleksandr Kakinen is NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, the University of Queensland, Australia. He obtained his Ph.D. degree (2014) at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow (2016–2020) at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Australia. His research interests range from nanomedicine and amyloids diseases to structural biology and nanotoxicology. Dr. Kakinen has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in high impact factor journals e.g. Chemical Society Reviews, Advanced Materials, Nature Communications, Nano Letters and ACS Nano. In addition to his scientific activities, Aleksandr is also passionate about scientific design and has founded a design studio that specialises in scientific illustrations and biomedical animations.

I am interested in ion channels in health and disease. Improved technologies for genetic screening is revealing an expanding catalogue of genetic variants to ion channels that give rise neurological disorders, such as epilespy syndromes, autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders. My main research focus is on neurotransmitter-activated receptor ion channels that are found at neuronal synapses. These include GABA-A, glycine and glutamate (NMDA) receptors. I also work on other ion channesl such as voltage-gated sodium channels and synaptic receptors expressed in invertebrate nervous systems.

I am an expert at recording single ion channel, synaptic and conventional whole-cell currents for functional and pharmacological analyisis.

I collaborate with biophysicists, molecular biologists, geneticists, electrophysiologists and clinicians that specialise in genetic neurological disorders. I have active projects in collaboration with research groups in Australia, USA and Europe.

Cognitive and decision-making problems associated with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are considered the largest burden for these individuals. They also predict poor functional outcomes, such as maintaining work, social networks, and independent living. I am particularly interested in the relationship between decision-making problems and psychotic symptoms in these disorders; will improving decision-making also reduce psychotic symptoms? To that end, I focus on decision-making tasks that are reliant on brain areas and networks that are implicated in psychosis.

My work aims to understand how corticostriatal circuitry drives decision-making processes, and how this is altered in those with schizophrenia and psychosis. I have taken advantage of my collaborations with basic scientists and clinical researchers with a broad range of expertise to establish a cross-species program of research focussed on decision-making. My research is guided by two fundamental questions:

1. Do decision-making problems in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders contribute to psychotic symptoms?
2. How can we leverage the mechanistic tools available in rodent neuroscience to identify causative common substrates underlying decision-making problems (and by proxy psychotic symptoms)?

How to build a brain—2.0

For 25 years I was sole chief investigator on 17 NHMRC-ARC project grants that provided funding to decipher the molecular & cellular bases of brain development and regeneration in fish, frogs and mice. This work culminated in the discovery of how to genetically construct an evolutionary novel axon tract in the embryonic brain. This is what I now call an easy problem.

Now my lab has turned its attention to the hardest problem in the natural sciences—how does the brain experience subjective feelings?

Together with my collaborator Professor Deborah Brown (Professor of Philosophy at UQ) we have approached this problem through the sensation of pain and model organisms. We advance the framework of the brain as an inference machine that generates models of its own internal processes (Key and Brown, 2018). When hierarchically arranged, the outputs of these models represent progressive levels of awareness that are antecedent to feelings (i.e. the brain’s experience of its own neural activity). We have proposed a parallel forwards model algorithm and to date have found that fish and molluscs lack the required neural architecture to execute this algorithm and therefore do not feel pain.

Key, B. and Brown, D. (2018) Designing brains for pain: Human to mollusc. Frontiers in physiology 9:1027.

I am a developmental neuroscientist and bioinformatician interested in the molecular evolution of the mammalian brain. I completed a PhD on the molecular development of vasculature in the primate retina at the Australian National University, followed by a postdoctoral position at the Institut de la Vision in France that was supported by a NHMRC CJ Martin fellowship, where I investigated the role of guidance factors in the formation of commissural neurons within the mammalian hindbrain. My current research focuses on the development and evolution of the mammalian forebrain, in particular understanding the regulatory mechanisms and molecular evolutionary processes that control specification of cortical neuron subtypes.

Dr Nyoman Kurniawan is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Imaging and the Facility Manager for Preclincal 16.4T Microimaging 9.4T MRI scanners.

Dr Kurniawan’s research areas are:

• Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of mouse neuroanatomy, with view to study neurological disease model, including:
  • developmental abnormalities
  • spinal cord diseases
• Development of 3D mouse brain, human spinal cord and cephalopod brain atlases using high resolution structural and diffusion MRI
• Development of MR methods for nephron imaging
• Application of MRI for agriculture imaging