I am a medicinal chemist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia, where I obtained my BSc (Hons) with a major in organic chemistry in 2011. Following this, I worked at the Institute for Future Environments and later the Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities at QUT, where I gained experience in analytical chemistry, as well as molecular biology and genetics. In 2015, I returned to UQ to begin my PhD in the design and synthesis of novel antifungals targeting invasive infection under the supervision of Prof. Craig Williams and Prof. Luke Guddat, which I completed in 2019. My combined experience in synthetic chemistry - particularly in the synthesis of heterocyclic small molecules - and molecular biology has since led to my current position at UQ under the supervision of Prof. Avril Robertson, where my focus is once again on the design and synthesis of novel antifungals. Broadly, my research interests lie in the pursuit of drug design and development campaigns addressing difficult or under-researched clinical concerns, and in particular, the use of novel bioisosteric approaches to improve drugability and drug efficacy.
More recently, I have developed an interest in Australian mushroom species. Very little recorded knowledge on our endemic mushrooms species exists. My research in this space seeks to characterise the genetic and molecular features of Australian wood rot mushrooms, which are critical players in maintaining and restoring the health of our unique forests ecosystems. With this information we aim to better understand our fungal biodiversity and the ecological roles they play, and to explore their potential uses in several industries. We are also investigating the biological activity of extracts and molecules derived from these mushrooms against models of human diseases, such as Alzheimer's, cancer, and drug-resistant microbial infections.
Prof David Ascher is currently an NHMRC Investigator and Director of the Biotechnology Program at the University of Queensland. He is also Head of Computational Biology and Clinical Informatics at the Baker Institute.
David’s research focus is in modelling biological data to gain insight into fundamental biological processes. One of his primary research interests has been developing tools to unravel the link between genotype and phenotype, using computational and experimental approaches to understand the effects of mutations on protein structure and function. His group has developed a platform of over 40 widely used programs for assessing the molecular consequences of coding variants (>7 million hits/year).
Working with clinical collaborators in Australia, Brazil and UK, these methods have been translated into the clinic to guide the diagnosis, management and treatment of a number of hereditary diseases, rare cancers and drug resistant infections.
David has a B.Biotech from the University of Adelaide, majoring in Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Pharmacology and Toxicology; and a B.Sci(Hon) from the University of Queensland, majoring in Biochemistry, where he worked with Luke Guddat and Ron Duggleby on the structural and functional characterization of enzymes in the branched-chain amino acid biosynthetic pathway. David then went to St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne in Biochemistry. There he worked under the supervision of Michael Parker using computational, biochemical and structural tools to develop small molecules drugs to improve memory.
In 2013 David went to the University of Cambridge to work with Sir Tom Blundell on using fragment based drug development techniques to target protein-protein interactions; and subsequently on the structural characterisation of proteins involved in non-homologous DNA repair. He returned to Cambridge in 2014 to establish a research platform to characterise the molecular effects of mutations on protein structure and function- using this information to gain insight into the link between genetic changes and phenotypes. He was subsequently recruited as a lab head in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne in 2016, before joining the Baker Institute in 2019 and the University of Queensland in 2021.
He is an Associate Editor of PBMB and Fronteirs in Bioinformatics, and holds honorary positions at Bio21 Institute, Cambridge University, FIOCRUZ, and the Tuscany University Network.
Scott Beatson is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Career Development Fellow at The University of Queensland (UQ). He specializes in bacterial pathogenomics: using whole-genome sequencing to investigate transmission, pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Recent work from his group includes genomic analyses of pandrug resistant enterobacteriaceae and the multidrug resistant Escherichia coli ST131 pandemic clone. He was awarded a PhD from UQ for his work in bacterial pathogenesis in 2002 and developed his career in bacterial genomics in the United Kingdom with the support of fellowships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (University of Oxford) and the UK Medical Research Council (University of Birmingham). Since returning to Australia he has held fellowships from both the NHMRC and ARC and has led a successful research group in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at UQ since 2008. He is also a member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics. In 2016 he received the Frank Fenner Award from the Australian Society for Microbiology in recognition of his contribution to microbiology research in Australia.
As a teaching and research academic within the School of the Environment at the University of Queensland, I research the biology and genetics of mosquitoes in our region of the Indo-Pacific that delivers fundamental knowledge into the role mosquitoes play in mosquito-borne disease. This work moves across basic and applied research and has advanced our understanding of mosquitoes, their evolution, species’ distributions, permitting better focused mosquito control to be imagined. More recent research involves exploring new environmentally friendly biological control tools such as using the Wolbachia bacterium and genetic modification to combat mosquito-borne disease.
For more detail on my research please see below and at this link http://www.nigelbeebe.com
Associate Professor Jakob Begun is the IBD Group leader in the Immunity, Infection, and Inflammation Program at Mater Research University of Queensalnd, and has a basic and translational laboratory at the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane. He is an Associate Professor in the University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine. After completing his Bachelor of Science at Cornell University Jakob attended Cambridge University where he completed an MPhil in Biochemistry. He then moved on to Harvard Medical School where he completed his MD and PhD in genetics studying the host pathogen interaction using C. elegans as a model system. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s hospital and went on to complete general gastroenterology training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as well as advanced training in the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Dr Begun first joined Mater Research - University of Queensland in 2014, and at the same time received a clinical staff appointment in Gastroenterology at the Mater Hospital Brisbane. His clinical activities are focussed on the treatment and mangement of patients with IBD. He is the director of the IBD unit at the Mater Hospital Brisbane and at the Mater Young Adult Health Centre Brisbane .In January 2015 he was awarded the University of Queensland Reginald Ferguson Fellowship in Gastroenterology to support his research activity. He leads a basic and translational laboratory at the Translational Research Institute investigating the interaction between the innate immune system and the gut microbiome, as well as genetic contributions to disease. He also performs clinical research examining predictors of response to therapy, minimising barriers of care for adolescents and young adults with IBD, improving outcomes in pregnancy and IBD, and the use of intestinal ultrasound in IBD. He is the chair of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia-IBD Faculty and of the president of the Gastroenterology Network of Intestinal Ultrasound (GENIUS).
My research interests are in evolutionary quantitative genetics. Much of my research involves developing multivariate statistical approaches to the analysis of the genetic basis of complex traits, and the selection acting upon them, which are then applied to questions in statistical genetics and evolutionary biology. Many of the empirical studies I conduct use the Australian native model system Drosophila serrata.
Dr. Gabriela Bodea received her PhD in 2014 with highest honours (Summa cum laude) from the University of Bonn, Germany. Subsequently, Dr Bodea joined the Genome Plasticity and Disease group at the Mater Research Institute in Australia. Here, Dr. Bodea began investigating the role of LINE-1 retrotransposons, a class of mobile DNA elements colloquially referred to as "jumping genes", in creating genetic variability within neurons. In 2017, Dr. Bodea joined the Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, where she is currently a Research Fellow in the Computational and Molecular Biology lab. Dr. Bodea's research aims to understand how the dynamic regulation of retrotransposons shapes neuronal identity in the mammalian brain and why certain neuronal subtypes are more susceptible to neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr Bodea's work has been supported by prestigious fellowships awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development. Dr. Bodea has published in top journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Cell Reports, Genome Research, and Development. Dr Bodea has also been involved in the training and mentorship of MSc and PhD students and participated in course coordination and lecturing activities.
Mikael Bodén has a PhD in Computer Science and statistical machine learning from the University of Exeter (UK) but has spent the last decade and a half in biological research environments, including the Institute for Molecular Bioscience/ARC Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics and the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, where he is currently located. He is the director of UQ’s postgraduate program in bioinformatics. Mikael Bodén has supervised 7 postdocs from funding he received from both ARC and NHMRC; he has been the primary advisor for 11 PhD and 3 MPhil graduates; he is currently supervising another 6 PhD students in bioinformatics and computational biology. Mikael Bodén collaborates with researchers in neuroscience, developmental biology, protein engineering and bioeconomy to mention but a few, and contributes expertise in the processing, analysis and integration of biological data; this is exemplified by recent publications in Science, Nature Catalysis, Nature Communications, Cell Systems, Nucleic Acids Research and Bioinformatics.
Research in the Bredy laboratory is aimed at elucidating how the genome is connected to the environment through epigenetic modifications, and how this relationship shapes brain and behaviour throughout life. The group is particularly interested in how epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation, histone modifications. the activity of non-coding RNAs, and RNA modification regulate the formation and maintenance of associative fear-related memory.
Dr Sandra Brosda is a Research Fellow within the Surgical Oncology group led by Professor Andrew Barbour.
Dr Brosda was awarded a PhD in bioinformatics and cancer genetics from the University of Queensland in November 2020. Her research focused on biomarker discovery and intra-tumour heterogeneity and tumour evolution in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC). In 2021, Dr Brosda was awarded a Cure Cancer Australia PdCCRS grant and an MSH project grant to further investigate tumour evolution to improve precision medicine in OAC.
She has been involved in research projects covering genetics, epigenetics, spatial transcriptomics, radiomics, ctDNA and quality of life assessments in the context of cancer. Overall, her research applies bioinformatics tools and approaches to cancer genomics to improve precision medicine and health outcomes for patients with melanoma, oesophago-gastric cancer and pancreatic cancer.
PROFESSOR MELISSA BROWN IS UNABLE TO SUPERVISE NEW STUDENTS FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE DUE TO HER COMMITMENTS AS EXECUTIVE DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE.
BIOGRAPHY
Melissa Brown completed her PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne in 1993, on the structure and regulation of genes encoding colony-stimulating factor receptors in human leukaemia.
She then undertook postdoctoral training at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London, funded firstly by an EMBO and then by an ICRF postdoctoral fellowship, working on the isolation and characterization of the first breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1.
She joined The University of Queensland in 2000 as a Lecturer and is now a Professor and Executive Dean. In 2005 she undertook a six-month sabbatical at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at The University of Oxford.
The focus of Melissa’s research is cancer genetics, in particular understanding the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of breast cancer genes and the impact of genetic variants on cancer risk and progression.
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Dr Bradley Campbell has over 10 years’ experience in plant biotechnology research and since 2003 has held research positions focused on plant molecular genetics. His research involves the use of genomic tools for crop improvement, with an emphasis on the sustainable production of grain crops. Major focus is on the improvement of crops for food, feed and bio-industrial end-uses. For the past 5 years he has also been involved in hay fever studies, focused on metagenomics of the aerobiome of Australian climates and its links to allergy. Current projects involve the genotyping of the Pacific Islands in vitro taro collection for germplasm preservation and breeding purposes, investigation into infrared spectral cameras and their applicability to taro salinity screening, as well as a comphrehensive bio-geographic analysis of the urban Australian aerobiome and its links to allergic rhinitis.
Dr Chan has a PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology from UQ. He underwent postdoctoral training at Rutgers University (USA) in algal genomics and evolution. He returmed to UQ in late 2011 as one of the inaugural Great Barrier Reef Foundation Bioinformatics Fellows.
Dr Chan joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2020 as a group leader at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE). His group uses advanced computational approaches to study genome evolution and develop scalable approaches for comparative genomics.
My current research at UQ is as Professor in this School (teaching AGRC3040 Crop Physiology) and as an Affiliate Professor of QAAFI. Since 2020, with full-time appointment at UQ, my research portfolio has included multiple projects in applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence into the ag domain. This area is developing rapidly and across UQ, I am engaging with faculty in multiple schools (ITEE, Maths and Physics, Mining and Mech Engineering) as well as in the Research Computing Centre to develop new projects and training opportunities at the interface of field agriculture and these new digital analytics.
My career research has been around genetic and environment effects on physiology of field crops, particularly where drought dominates. Application of quantitative approaches (crop simulation and statistical methods) and phenotyping (aerial imaging, canopy monitoring) to integrate the understanding of interactions of genetics, growth and development and the bio-physical environment on crop yield. In recent years, this work has expanded more generally into various applications in digital agriculture from work on canopy temperature sensing for irrigation decisions (CSIRO Entrepreneurship Award 2022) through to applications of deep-learning to imagery to assist breeding programs.
Much of this research was undertaken with CSIRO since 1996. Building on an almost continuous collaboration with UQ over that time, including as an Adjunct Professor to QAAFI, Prof Chapman was jointly appointed (50%) as a Professor in Crop Physiology in the UQ School of Agriculture and Food Sciences from 2017 to 2020, and at 100% with UQ from Sep 2020. He has led numerous research projects that impact local and global public and private breeding programs in wheat, sorghum, sunflower and sugarcane; led a national research program on research in ‘Climate-Ready Cereals’ in the early 2010s; and was one of the first researchers to deploy UAV technologies to monitor plant breeding programs. Current projects include a US DoE project with Purdue University, and multiple projects with CSIRO, U Adelaide, La Trobe, INRA (France) and U Tokyo. With > 8500 citations, Prof Chapman is currently in the top 1% of authors cited in the ESI fields of Plant and Animal Sciences and in Agricultural Sciences.
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Seth Cheetham is an ARC Discovery Early Career Award Fellow and group leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. He is also the Deputy Director of the BASE facility, Australia's leading mRNA manufacturing hub. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Herchel Smith Research Studentship. Seth is a molecular biologist and geneticist with a focus on mRNA drugs, synthetic biology and epigenetics. He has authored 22 publications, including twelve as a first author and four as a corresponding author. He has published in some of the most influential molecular biology journals including Science, Molecular Cell, Nature Reviews Genetics , Genome Biology and Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. His work has attracted > $10M in funding from an ARC DECRA (2022), NHMRC Fellowship (2019), MRFF grants, UQ HERA Grant, a Cancer Australia Grant (2021), Mater Foundation seeding grant (2019), a UQ ECR grant (2019) and the UQ Genome Innovation Hub (2020). In 2021 Seth was awarded the Genetics Society of Australasia Alan Wilton ECR awarded for his research in the field of RNA and epigenetics.
Our lab aims to test fundamental hypotheses in genetics and evolutionary biology. Principally, we are interested the relationship between genotypic and phenotypic change during adaptive evolution. This line of inquiry requires an understanding of both the type of selection acting on traits as they evolve and ultimately the functional polymorphisms available for selection to act upon. We presently use both native and exotic species of Drosophila in our work but also undertake collaborative study in other organisms that represent examples of recurring ecological and evolutionary phenomena. We are equipped to use a broad range of techniques in our investigations including experimental evolution, field-based selection studies, quantitative genetics, molecular population genetics, genomics and advanced quantitative methods in statistics and computational biology. The broad range of techniques available to our group provides students with a unique opportunity to broaden their skill sets as they address fundamental questions.
