Mattick Lecture: Professor John Mattick AO
The Mattick Lecture - Scientists in the Courtroom
Venue
In 2023, an Australian mother was released and acquitted after serving 20 years in prison, convicted by a jury of murdering her four young children over a 10-year period. She was convicted based on circumstantial evidence alone, without any physical evidence. She has always maintained that she is innocent. Here, we will shed light on how we, as Danish scientists, became involved in an Australian legal inquiry into her convictions and how our research, involving genetics, proteins and calcium signalling, played a central role in the process leading to her acquittal.
Mette Nyegaard
Mette Nyegaard is a Professor in Precision Medicine and Genetics at Aalborg University, Denmark, and Head of the Department of Congenital Disorders at Statens Serum Institute, Denmark. She has more than 25 years of experience in linking genetic variation to phenotype for both rare and common complex diseases. In 2012, Professor Nyegaard identified the first ever human mutation in a gene encoding Calmodulin and linked missense mutations to severe cardiac arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death. Professor Nyegaard coauthored the 2021 Europace research paper describing the ‘Folbigg mutation’ CALM2 G114R. Professor Nyegaard provided several expert reports and gave oral evidence for the 2022 Folbigg inquiry, together with Professor Michael Toft Overgaard.
Michael Toft Overgaard
Michael Toft Overgaard is a Professor in Protein Science at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has more than 27 years of experience in studying protein structure and function, focusing on understanding the impact of human disease mutations. He has published 22 research papers dealing with mutations in the genes encoding the Calmodulin protein. Professor Overgaard led the work describing the effect of the ‘Folbigg mutation’ CALM2 G114R and was co-senior author of the resulting 2021 Europace research paper. Professor Overgaard provided several expert reports and gave oral evidence for the 2022 Folbigg inquiry, together with Professor Mette Nyegaard.