Professor Rachel Allavena is a specialist veterinary pathologist, multidisciplinary researcher and Deputy Head of School, at the School of Veterinary Science, Gatton. She develops cancer treatments called immunotherapies which wake up the immune system so it fights the cancer. Her unique approach uses pet dogs with natural cancer to conduct the research. This helps the dog and it's family, as well as progressing the development of veterinary treatments and simultaneously advancing human medicine. As Deputy Head of School she aims to support staff and students to make UQ one of the top school's in Australasia, supporting both pets and people. Rachel is a multi-award winning teacher, lecturinging in veterinary pathology, toxicology, animal welfare and laboratory animal science. Her specialist expertise is nationally and internationally recognised in forensics, animal cruelty and toxicology where she acts as an expert witness in criminal and civil legal cases. She is a strong advocate for racing animal welfare, investigating racing animal injury and deaths and conducting research on how to improve animal welfare in sport, society and research. Prof Allavena has an active media profile and has been featured in national and international media including The Conversation, ABC national and regional radio and TV news, commercial and community TV and radio. In 2022-2023 she is a 'Flying Scientist' for Queensland's Office of the Chief Scientist. Rachel really enjoys doing presentations to school students and teachers as well as public outreach events to promote science to the general public. She has presented a TEDx talk on how dogs can help us cure cancer.
Prof Allavena has a PhD in Comparative Medicine from Cornell Univesity in New York, and undertook her pathology specialistation at Ontario Veterinary College. She has worked in drug safety research and development in the pharmaceutical industry in preclinical safety testing and discovery research in the United Kingdom. Her research interests are strongly focused on comparative and translational medicine and animal model validation and development in rodents, dogs and other laboratory animal species. Her major research projects include developing novel cancer immunotherapics and diagnostics for pet dogs naturally suffering from cancer both as a veterinary therapy and comparative model for human cancer. Further, she has extensive research in drivers of koala population decline in SEQLD. She has wide ranging research collaborations specialising in the pathological assessment and study design for animal models in a variety of areas including novel therapeutics, drug safety, toxicology and natural envenomations, biometallic implants, and animal welfare in laboratory animals and domestic species. She is a board certified veterinary anatomic pathologist with the American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) and a registered specialist veterinary anatomic pathologist with the Veterinary Surgeon's Board of Queensland through the Australian Veterinary Boards Council. She is the lead diagnostic anatomic pathologist in the UQ School of Veterinary Science Veterinary Laboratory Service, and in her professional capacity she oversees cases for Racing Queensland, Queensland Police and RSPCA Queensland, with a special interest in animal welfare and forensic pathology. She has an extensive successful track record of training anatomic pathologists for American College of Veterinary Pathology board certification. She was awarded a Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award in 2015 and a UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2021. She has served as an office holder in the Pathobiology chapter of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists and the Australian Society of Veterinary Pathologists.
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).
Gabrielle Belz originally trained in veterinary medicine and surgery and received her PhD in understanding the organisation of lymphatics and lymphoid tissues at The University of Queensland. After a short stint in Canada to work on B cells, she moved to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital to work with Peter Doherty supported by an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship. Here she established a number of systems that now allow tracking of virus-specific T cells and established the paradigm changing notion that CD4 T cell help was required for generating antiviral responses. She returned to The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and uncovered the identity of the key dendritic cells necessary for initiating antiviral infections. Subsequently she was awarded the Burnet Prize and NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship. Her research contributions have been recognized by a number of awards including a Wellcome Trust Overseas Fellowship, HHMI international fellowship, ARC Future fellowship, Doctor of Veterinary Science and the Gottschalk Medal (Australian Academy of Science). Her laboratory focuses on deciphering the key cellular and transcriptional signals of protective immunity particularly by T cells and in understanding how innate immune cells develop and make novel contributions to mucosal immune defence.
After receiving a PhD on immune regulation from La Sorbonne Universitas in France, Anne-Sophie joined Prof. Ian Frazer’s lab in Australia where she led a highly successful and independent research program on the mechanisms of immune tolerance in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated lesions in mice. She then joined the field of autoimmune diseases with Prof. Ranjeny Thomas. In Type 1 Diabetes, her pre-clinical data showed the feasibility of an antigen-specific liposome targeted immunotherapy in pre-diabetic mice and led to the first-in-human clinical trial using liposome nanoparticles. In Spondyloarthropathy, her interest is focused on deciphering the link between the gut microbiome, the immune system and the development of arthritic inflammation.
Stefan is a Staff Specialist in Neurology at the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) and the Mater Centre for Neuroscience. He finished his training as neurologist in 2012.
He runs dedicated multiple sclerosis (MS) and Neuroimmunology clinics at the PAH, leading in modern MS therapies. Moreover, he has been at the forefront of advancing the field of neuroimmunology in Queensland, with establishment of dedicated neuroimmunology outpatient clinics at the RBWH and PAH, combining expertise from neurologists and immunologists in the care of this very complex group of disorders.
In addition to his busy, full-time clinical workload, Stefan has been involved as PI or CI in a range of clinical trials in the fields of MS, botulinum toxin, CIDP and Pompe’s disease. Additionally, he has performed and is involved in ongoing research projects of neuroimmunological disorders such as neuromyelitis optica, myasthenia gravis and autoimmune limbic encephalitis. He has been a member of the New Horizons study to assess prevalence of anti-neuronal antibodies in patients with new onset psychosis.
Prior to this, Stefan finished a PhD in the field of ‘Immunogenetics of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Chronic inflammatory polyneuropathy’ at the University of Queensland in 2014. He also completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 2002 in the field of T cell immunology. During this time, he has developed solid skills in bench-side immunological research.
Currently, he is neurological lead in a diverse group of clinicians and scientists investigating the role of antineuronal antibodies in neurological and psychiatric disease. He supervises 3 PhD students in the field of advanced imaging in autoimmune encephalitis and multiple sclerosis. He is currently building up a laboratory to test antineuronal antibodies using live cell assays.
Professor Antje Blumenthal combines her expertise in immunology and microbiology to lead research on molecular mechanisms that control immune responses to infection, alongside more recently developed research on new antimicrobials. The overall goal of her research is to improve our ability to treat severe bacterial infections as part of the global efforts to overcome the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Prof Blumenthal graduated with a major in Microbiology from the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, pursued PhD research in Immunology at the Leibniz Research Center for Medicine and Biosciences Borstel, Germany, and undertook postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA. She joined The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in 2010 where she leads the Infection & Inflammation Group, fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations with immunologists, microbiologists, chemists, clinical research teams and industry partners. Her research is enabled by major funding from international and national agencies, and has been recognised internationally and nationally by prestigious awards, speaking invitations at eminent conferences and institutions, invitations to peer-review for esteemed journals and funding agencies. Prof Blumenthal is an enthusiastic undergraduate teacher and research student advisor. She is proactive in advancing the careers of junior scientists, leads the development and implementation of initiatives that promote equity, diversity and inclusion in science, and a positive workplace culture. Through leadership roles within the University and professional societies as well as editorial roles for international journals, Prof Blumenthal actively contributes to the scientific community.
Dr Andrew Brooks is the Group Leader of the Cytokine Receptor Signalling Group at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute (UQ DI) within the Translational Research Institute. Andrew completed his Honours research on Flaviviruses in 1996 at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at James Cook University and then moved to the Department of Biochemistry to study Dengue Virus where he completed his PhD in 2002. He then moved to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, USA where he researched the role of Epstein-Barr Virus in B-cell lymphomagenesis. He then joined the research group headed by Prof Michael Waters at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ in 2006 and subsequently began his independent research group at UQ DI in 2014. Andrew’s research interests are in cytokine receptors, cell signalling, oncogenesis, and immunology. His current research focus is on the molecular mechanisms of class I cytokine receptor activation including the growth hormone receptor (GHR), thrombopoietin receptor (TpoR/MPL), IL-7 receptor, and IL-6 receptor (IL-6R). In addition, he is investigating the regulation of inflammation by HLA-G. His research has led to publications in journals including Science, Blood, Hepatology, Oncogene, Nature Cell Biology, and PNAS. He has been the secured of over $12 million in research and commercialisation funding from sources including NHMRC, ARC, Innovation Connections, and Merck. He has a number of national and international collaborations, a scientific founder of a start-up company, and is an Editorial Board member for the Journal Cancers and Human Cell. He was previously a committee member of Australian Early-Mid Career Researchers Forum (AEMCRF) launched by the Australian Academy of Science.
Dr. Sabrina Sofia Burgener is Deputy Lab Head of the Disease Modelling Team of the Inflammasome Laboratory and Senior Research Fellow in Immunology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland.
As Deputy Lab Head of the Inflammasome Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Dr. Burgener is an innate immunologist with over 12 years of cross-functional expertise in immunology, disease modelling and molecular biology. My research program focuses on a holistic understanding of inflammasome signalling in pre-clinical disease models to harness the development of new diagnostics and anti-inflammatory therapeutics.
After obtaining her professional training as a Veterinary Technician, they completed their PhD in Immunology under supervision of A/Prof. Benarafa at the University of Bern, Switzerland in 2017.
For their work on the cytoprotective role of Serpinb1 and Serpinb6 in neutrophils, they received several international awards such as the Society of Leukocyte Biology Presidential Award in 2016 and the Dr. Lutz Zwillenberg Prize in 2020. Before joining the Inflammasome Lab in 2019, Dr. Burgener had been a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Virology and Immunology at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern. In the Schroder lab, Dr. Burgener leads a team of Honour and PhD students, interested in understanding how caspase-1 drives inflammatory diseases and if targeting caspase-1 in diseases such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and Alzheimer’s disease comes at the cost of increased susceptibility to infection. Their research is funded by SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2020-2022) and the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research Fellowship (2022-2023).
Dr Fernanda Cardoso is a Brazil-born Australian researcher interested in venom peptide-based biodiscovery and therapeutics development. Cardoso was awarded an MSc in Molecular Pharmacology and a PhD with an emphasis in Biochemistry and Immunology and is part of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where she develops novel therapies for complex neurological diseases. Cardoso has interdisciplinary training in the fields of neuropharmacology, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology and a strong background in drug discovery, which provides the skills to identify naturally occurring or synthetic bioactive molecules and to study their effects in human physiology with applications in neurologic disorders such as chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and motor neuron disease (MND). Please see Dr Cardoso’s Grants and Publications list for more details.
Before joining the University of Queensland, Dr Cardoso was part of the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, holding a prestigious CAPES Postdoctoral Fellowship. During this period, Cardoso developed unique high-throughput screen platforms for discovering protein and peptide targets of novel therapies to combat infectious diseases and novel helminth-derived bioactives with anti-inflammatory properties. Please see Dr Cardoso’s Publications list for more details.
Dr Cardoso is currently part of the Centre for Drug Discovery and manages several industry and academic projects studying ion channel modulators derived from natural repertoires, particularly venoms, and developing novel, effective drugs to treat neurological disorders.
Professor Dan Chambers is a thoracic transplant physician, interstitial lung disease expert, and translational clinician researcher. He is an internationally recognised authority in the fields of lung fibrosis, cell therapy for lung disease and lung transplantation. His research focuses on the mechanisms and treatments for lung fibrosis, silicosis, transplant rejection and post-transplant complications.
Graduating from UQ in 1993 with the William Nathaniel Robertson Medal and a University Medal, Dan’s career has continued to be recognised by being named one of Australia’s top 200 researchers in all fields and the most highly cited in the field of transplantation for the last three years. Dan was the immediate past Director of the International Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Registry, the first Australian to be appointed to that role. The Registry remains the most important source of evidence to guide the practice of transplantation globally.
Dan is Executive Director of Research at Australia’s’ largest health service, Metro North Hospital and Health, and heads one of the world’s largest clinical trials programs in lung fibrosis. He is Chair of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Australiasian Clinical Trials Network (PACT). His research program, located at UQ Thoracic Research Centre at Prince Charles Hospital, has attracted over $20 million. He has authored over 150 original papers and book chapters. He is a regular reviewer for all the highest ranked journals in respiratory and transplantation medicine and is Deputy Editor of the Journal for Heart and Lung Transplantation, the highest impact journal in the field.
I am a Senior Research Fellow, NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow, and Group Leader at UQ Frazer Institute. I was awarded my PhD in late 2017 by Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University. Under the UQ Health Research Accelerator (HERA) program, I lead a team to investigate T and B cell responses that profoundly regulate vaccine responses, viral clearance, and anti-tumour immunity.
My research program employs combinatorial methodologies of Biochemistry and Immunology to uncover new molecular mechanisms controlling T-cell-mediated immunity:
1. The action of T cells is required in antibody responses for suppressing viral infection or tumour growth and to confer protection upon vaccination. In particular, follicular helper T (Tfh) cells, a specialised subset of CD4+ T cells, essentially instruct the B cells to produce long-lived antibody protection. The knowledge of Tfh cells has fundamentally enabled vaccine development and therapy design for autoimmune diseases.
2. T-cell-derived cytokines play pivotal roles in both humoral and cellular immunity. Particularly, interleukin-21 (IL-21) is essential for supporting germinal centre (GC) reaction, where the B cell memory and long-lived antibody responses are generated. Besides, IL-21 is also the only known cytokine to maintain the functionalities of CD8+ T cells in the context of chronic infections or cancers by preventing a loss-of-function program termed 'exhaustion'.
This research program has generated multiple cutting-edge discoveries in the field, producing publications as 1st or joint 1st authors in top-tier journals including Nature Immunology, Science Immunology, and Nature Communications.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Affiliate Professor of School of Bi
School of Biomedical Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
UQ Laureate Fellow - GL
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
David Craik (AO, FRS, FAA) is in the Centre for Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Australia. He discovered the cyclotide family of circular proteins and has characterized the structures of many animal toxins including conotoxins from cone snail venoms. He heads a research team of 35 researchers whose current work focuses on applications of circular proteins, drugs in plants, toxins and NMR in drug design.
He is author of over 810 scientific papers, including 14 in Nature publications (Nature/Nature Communications/Nature Neuoroscience/Nature Structural Biology/Nature Chemical Biology/Nature Chemistry/Scientific Reports/Nature Protocols, 1 in Science, 12 in PNAS, 9 in JACS, 3 in Chemical Reviews, and 16 in Angewandte Chemie. He has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, appointed as an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia and has received numerous awards for his research, including the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award from the American Chemical Society (2011), Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research (2014), GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence (2014), the Vincent du Vigneaud Award from the American Peptide Society (2015),the FAOBMB Award for Research Excellence (2015) and the Cathay Award from the Chinese Peptide Society (2018). He received the Australian Academy of Science David Craig Medal in 2023. He is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou and has an Honorary Doctorate from Kalmar University in Sweden.
Biography
David Craik obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and undertook postdoctoral studies at Florida State and Syracuse Universities before taking up a lectureship at the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1983. He was appointed Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head of School in 1988. He moved to University of Queensland in 1995 to set up a new biomolecular NMR, held an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2015-2020) and is currently a NHMRC Fellow, as well as Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Peptide and Protein Science.
Key Discoveries
David Craik has made discoveries of new classes of proteins, generated new knowledge on their structure and function, and used this information to design and chemically re-engineer new classes of protein-based drug leads and agricultural pest control agents. In particular, his major achievements are:
the discovery of cyclotides, the largest known family of circular proteins. As well as a circular backbone, cyclotides contain a knotted arrangement of cross-linking disulfide bonds, making them remarkably stable. His discovery of these proteins was sparked in part from anecdotal reports of medicinal practices in Africa where women make a tea from the plant Oldenlandia affinis by boiling it in water and sipping it during labour to accelerate child birth. He determined the structure of the bioactive component of this medicinal tea and found that it had an unprecedented head-to-tail cyclic peptide backbone combined with a cystine knot.
the first structural and functional characterizations of prototypic circular proteins in higher organisms - Professor Craik was one of the first to recognize that other families of ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptides exist. As examples from bacteria and animals emerged, Professor Craik was at the forefront of their structural characterization, reporting the first structures of theta-defensins from animals and the threaded lasso peptide microcin J25 from bacteria, as well as new examples of cyclic peptides from plants.
the development of artificially cyclized peptide toxins as drug leads – he developed an orally active peptide that is 100 times more potent than the leading clinically used drug for neuropathic pain.
Research Training
Professor Craik has trained more than 70 PhD students. He was awarded UQ’s Research Supervision Excellence Award in 2007 on the basis of his mentoring and innovations in postgraduate training, including his “writing retreats” to mentor students and postdocs on science writing skills. He received the Institute for Molecular Bioscience Individual Leadership Award in 2019. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kalmar University, Sweden for his contributions to international student exchange programs, and is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou.
Professional Activities
Professor Craik founded and chaired the 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Conferences on Circular Proteins (2009, 2012 and 2015) and was on the Scientific Program Committee for ISMAR 2021. He is on the Boards of six international journals, including Angewandte Chemie, ACS Chemical Biology, Chemical Biology and Drug Design, and ChemBioChem. He was on the Council of the American Peptide Society (2015-2021). He was the director two Brisbane-based biotech companies. He is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of James Cook University’s Centre for Biodiscovery and Molecular Development of Therapeutics (BMDT), the University of Wollongong’s Illawara Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) and Enzytag. He conceived and supports two publicly accessible databases - Cybase on circular proteins (www.cybase.org.au), and conotoxins (www.conoserver.org).
Peter Csurhes is an immunologist with a strong research track record in multiple sclerosis (MS) research within UQ that has spanned 30 years.
Together with Emeritus Professor Michael Pender, Peter’s work in a number of preclinical research studies into the role that immunity to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) plays in MS disease pathogenesis has translated to clinical trials testing of potentially ground-breaking new T cell immunotherapeutic treatments for progressive MS. Collaborative links between QIMR Berghofer, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and commercial partners have been established and clinical trials are ongoing.
After the retirement of Professor Pender, Peter has taken on a chief investigator role, and in 2023 gained successful NHMRC MRFF funding to continue research into the biology of the Epstein-Barr virus and the role it plays in the multiple sclerosis disease process.
Peter has also been involved in studying the role of reactivity to autoantigens in MS and in diseases of the peripheral nervous system including Guillain-Barre syndrome and CIDP.
For several years he worked on the immunology of potential malaria vaccine candidates and also worked part-time for 18 months on research into EBV-related cancers within the QIMR-Berghofer Medical Research Institute.
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Associate Professor in Env Science
School of the Environment
Faculty of Science
Availability:
Available for supervision
Paul Dennis leads an exciting research group that applies cutting-edge technologies to understand the roles of microorganisms and their responses to environmental change.
He is also a passionate educator and public speaker who advocates for the importance of biological diversity and evidence-based environmental awareness. He has talked about his research on ABC Radio and a range of other media outlets.
His teaching covers aspects of ecology, microbiology, plant and soil science, and climatology. He considers these topics to be of fundamental importance for the development of more sustainable societies and takes pride in helping others to obtain the knowledge and skills they need to build a better future.
Paul's research has taken him to Antarctica, the Amazon Rainforest, high mountains and oceans. The approaches used in his lab draw on a wide range of expertise in molecular biology, ecology, statistics, computer science, advanced imaging and soil science. He applies these skills to a wide-range of topics and systems including plant-microbe interactions, Antarctic marine and terrestrial ecology, biogeography, pollution and human health.
Professor Denise Doolan is Director of Research at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. She joined IMB in 2022 and was previously Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, and Director of the JCU Centre for Molecular Therapeutics, at James Cook University.
She is a molecular immunologist, working on the development of vaccines, diagnostics and host-directed therapeutics for infectious and chronic diseases that impact global public health, with a particular focus on malaria. Her cross-disciplinary research program spans host-pathogen immunity, antigen discovery, vaccine engineering, and biomarker discovery. A particular interest is the application of state-of-the-art genome-based technologies and human models of disease system to identify novel targets for intervention against disease or that predict risk of disease.
She is a recognized world expert in malaria immunology, vaccinology, and omic-based approaches for therapeutic and diagnostic development. She has been honoured as a Fellow of the International Society for Vaccines (2017) and a Fellow of the Australian Society of Parasitology (2019) in recognition of her leadership and contribution to health and medical science in Australia and internationally.
Professor Doolan serves on a number of Executive Boards and Advisory Boards. Most recently, she has been elected as President of the International Society for Vaccines (2021-2023), and has been appointed to the Federal Government’s Australian Medical Research Advisory Board (AMRAB; 2021-2026) to provide specialist insights into Australia’s medical research and innovation priorities.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Centre Director of Institute for Mo
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Group L
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Professor Fairlie is an NHMRC Research Investigator Fellow (Level 3) (2022-present), a Node Leader of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide Protein Science, one of four Centre Directors and former Head of the Division of Chemistry of Structural Biology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (since 2009), and an Affiliate Professor of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. He was previously an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow (2012-2021), a Node Leader at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging (2014-2021), an ARC Federation Fellow (2006-2011), an ARC Professorial Fellow (2002-2006), and Scientific Director and Chief Scientific Officer of a startup company. He undertook postdoctoral studies at Stanford University and University of Toronto, postgraduate studies at Australian National University and University of New South Wales, and undergraduate studies at University of Adelaide.
His research group works across the disciplines of chemistry (synthesis, structure, reaction mechanisms), biochemistry (enzyme inhibitors, protein-protein interactions, GPCRs, transcription factors), immunology (innate immune cells in health and disease, mucosal T cells), and pharmacology (molecular pharmacology and human cell signalling, experimental pharmacology in rodent models of human diseases). He has published over 450 scientific journal articles in high impact chemistry journals (e.g. Chem Rev, J Am Chem Soc, Angew Chem Int Edit, Chem Sci, J Med Chem, Org Lett, J Org Chem) and biology journals (e.g. Nature, Science, Nature Immunology, Immunity, Science Immunology, Nature Communications, J Exp Med, J Clin Invest, Proc Natl Acad Sci, Diabetes, Cancer Res, Br J Pharmacol). He has been a Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics), with over 37,000 citations and 104 publications with over 100 citations (Google Scholar), and has collaborated with many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Dr Fernando's current research interests include developing needle-free, pain-free, skin patch vaccines. Influenza and human papilloma virus vaccines are used as model vaccines in these studies.
Dr Germain Fernando completed PhD at the University of Arizona, USA, and did post-doctoral research at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, before joining the University of Queensland in 1989. He has been working in the field of vaccinology for the last 28 years. He has a H-Index of 36.
He is a Senior Consultant at Vaxxas Pty. Ltd, Brisbane, Australia
Publications and Citation Metrics are available at the following website:
Professor Ian Frazer is a clinician scientist, trained as a clinical immunologist in Scotland. As a professor at the University of Queensland, he leads a research group working at TRI in Brisbane, Australia on the immunobiology of epithelial cancers. He is recognised as co-inventor of the technology enabling the HPV vaccines, currently used worldwide to help prevent cervical cancer. He heads a biotechnology company, Jingang Medicine (Aus) Pty Ltd, working on new vaccine technologies, and is a board member of several companies and not for profit organisations. He was the inaugural president of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and a member of the Australian National Science and Technology Council. He chairs the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board of the Medical Research Future Fund.
He was recognised as Australian of the Year in 2006. He was recipient of the Prime Ministers Prize for Science, and of the Balzan Prize, in 2008, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2012. He was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2013.
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.
