IMB's latest news, explainers and more
Risk of depression and heart disease linked in women
Get the latest research to your inbox
Emeritus
Emeritus Professor George Muscat
Group Leader, Cell and Developmental Biology DivisionEmeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Professor George Muscat is currently a Professorial and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow (2014-18) at IMB, and an affiliate appointment in the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland.
Professor Muscat completed undergraduate training at the University of Sydney, and was mentored by Professor Peter B. Rowe during the completion of his PhD program at the CMRI (1981-85).
He conducted his Postdoctoral Research under the guidance of Professor Larry Kedes at Stanford University, CA. (1985-88), and was subsequently appointed as an Assistant Professor of Research at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (1989).
He joined The University of Queensland in 1990, and focused his research on understanding the molecular role of Nuclear Hormone Receptor signalling in breast cancer, diabetes, obesity and exercise.
Professor Muscat was a visiting scientist/sabbatical visitor at X-Ceptor Therapeutics, San Diego (2001), involved in a scientific collaboration with Metabolex, and a Guest Professor, Sahlgrenska Academy, The University of Gothenburg, (2014-15).
He has served as a member of: (i) the editorial boards of J. Biol. Chem., Endocrinology and Molecular Endocrinology, (ii) NHMRC Assigners Academy, NHMRC GRPs, NHMRC Research Fellowships Peer Review Panels, and (iii) National Breast Cancer Foundation Research Advisory Council.
Connect
Emeritus Professor Paul Alewood
Group Leader, Chemistry and Structural Biology DivisionEmeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Paul Alewood graduated from the University of NSW before moving to the University of Calgary for his PhD. His early research interest was in classical organic chemistry, but the discovery in the mid 1970s of encephalins – short-chain amino acids produced in the body that have a similar effect to morphine – triggered an interest in protein and peptide chemistry.
He moved to Queensland, attracted by the state’s healthy populations of dangerous marine animals – cone snails, sea snakes and stone fish, to name a few. Such animals offer vast potential in the treatment of chronic pain, as their venom contains thousands of small peptides that target sensory nerve receptors.
He is the author of more than 300 publications and was a prime mover in establishing the Melbourne-based peptide company, Auspep, and Xenome, a spin-off biopharmaceutical company from the University of Queensland. More recently, he was a foundation scientist at Betabiotics, a joint venture company between IMB and CSIRO, and the founder of Elacor, a joint venture between the University of Queensland and the Baker Heart Research Institute, Victoria.
Connect
Emeritus Professor Peter Koopman
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Professor Koopman earned his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1986 for research on stem cell differentiation. He moved to London soon afterwards for a postdoctoral appointment in the Mammalian Development Unit at the Medical Research Council, where he conducted medical analyses of mouse embryo development. During a second postdoc, with the National Institute for Medical Research, he was part of the team who isolated the mouse Y-chromosome gene (now known as SRY) and demonstrated its role in sex determination by reversing the sex of XX-chromosome mice. The discovery is widely regarded as one of the major achievements in molecular genetics of the 20th century.
In 1992 he took a role at The University of Queensland, and now heads a research team whose work focuses on genes that regulate embryonic development, with special emphasis on the molecular genetics of sex development, fertility, gonadal cancers and intersex conditions. He’s also extensively involved in research training, having co-founded the Australian Developmental Biology Workshop in 2001. The workshop is a training-ground for the next generation of developmental biologists in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Between 2007 and 2012 he was a Federation Fellow of the ARC, and in 2008 was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
Connect
Emeritus Professor Mark Ragan
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Mark Ragan is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
He was founding Head of IMB's former Division of Genomics & Computational Biology (2000-2014), founding Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics (2003-2015), and co-founder of QFAB Bioinformatics.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Biochemistry) and Dalhousie University (Biology). His 200+ peer-reviewed research publications in biochemistry, molecular biology, evolutionary biology, genomics, algorithmics, bioinformatics and computational biology have attracted more than 13500 citations.
Core technologies in his research group (integration of large bioscience data, scalable algorithms on trees and networks, bioinformatic workflows, high-performance and data-centric computing) were applied to problems of genome sequencing and de novo assembly, comparative evolutionary genomics, and inference of biomolecular networks particularly in the coral reef symbiont Symbiodinium, and in targeting therapies against DNA damage repair networks in familial breast cancer.
Mark was also involved in national and international infrastructure initiatives in genomics, computing, data and bioinformatics services.
Video
Connect
Emeritus Professor Michael Waters
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:- Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Delivering innovative microalgae functional feeds to better meet the increasing needs of the aquaculture and livestock industries.
Wray/Visscher/Yang Group
Group Leaders
Professor Peter Visscher
UQ Laureate Fellow and Group LeaderInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Visscher joined the University of Queensland in 2011, where he is Professor of Quantitative Genetics. He is a Laureate Fellow of the Australian Research Council. Visscher was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2010, a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2018 and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.
Visscher's research is about genetic variation for complex traits (including quantitative traits and disease) in populations, with the broad aim to understand and quantify the causes and consequences of human trait variation.
Prof Peter Visscher, Prof Naomi Wray and Prof Jian Yang together comprise the Executive Team of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG). PCTG comprises a critical mass of more than 30 post-doctoral researchers plus research assistants and students, all supported by external grant funding. Their skills lie in the ability to develop and apply statistical methods within the framework of quantitative, population and statistical genetics and to use theory to understand and predict results from data analyses. They play leading roles in the international research consortia. The focus of current research activities is in the detection and fine-mapping of loci underlying complex traits (including common disease), based upon theoretical studies and applications of methods to large datasets, in population genetics studies using theoretical approaches and high-density genetic marker data, and in systems genomics studies.
Professor Naomi Wray
Director, Centre for Population and Disease GenomicsJoint AppointmentQueensland Brain InstituteProfessorial Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Naomi Wray is the Michael Davys Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford. She holds an appointment at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) within the University of Queensland. She joined UQ Queensland Brain Institute in 2011 moving to the IMB in 2015. She was Head of the Centre for Population & Disease Genomics within IMB 2018-2023. Her Oxford appointment started in 2023.
Her research focuses on development and application of quantitative genetics and genomics methodologies across complex diseases, disorders and traits, but particularly psychiatric-related traits.
She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science. In 2020 she was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Award for Leadership in Basic Science and the 2021 International Society of Psychiatric Genetics Ming Tsuang Lifetime Achievement Award. She is a Clarivate Highly Cited researcher.
She was Director of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG) funded as an NHMRC Program Grant 2017-2022. She plays a key role in the International Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and established the sporadic ALS Australia systems genomics consortium (SALSA) funded by the MND Research Australia IceBucket Challenge and FightMND. She is a co-investigator on the Australian Genetics of Depression Study (AGDS) and is currently launching the AGDS-Cello project focussed on establishing a cell line resource from participants with a detailed history of anti-depressant use and response measures. She is part of an NHMRC Synergy (2023-2027) "Rhythms and blues: Personalising care for body clock dysfunction in mood disorders".
She is secretary of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics, and is on the editorial advisory boards of JAMA Psychiatry, Neuron, Royal Society Open and Research Directions: Depression.
Researchers
Dr Beben Benyamin
NHMRC Career Development FellowResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Professor Loic Yengo
ARC Future Fellow - GLInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Dr Loic Yengo is a Professor of Statistical Genomics at The University of Queensland (UQ) and Group Leader of the Statistical Genomics Laboratory within UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He was awarded a prestigious Snow Medical Research Fellowship in 2024 to dramatically advance the use of genomics to prevent chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's, with a particular focus on increasing participation of people with diverse ancestries. After completing a PhD in applied mathematics and statistics at the University of Lille (France) in 2014, he joined UQ in 2016 for postdoctoral training in Quantitative and Statistical Genetics. Loic started his own lab in 2020 to investigate the causes and consequences of genetic variation within and between human populations. His group develops and applies novel statistical methods to analyse large volumes of genomic data. Loic's research has contributed to improving understanding of the genetic and phenotypic consequences of non-random mating (inbreeding and assortative mating) in human populations and has led to identifying novel genetic variants associated with complex traits and diseases. Loic was named among the top 40 rising stars of research by The Australian newspaper in 2021 and received the UQ Foundation research excellence award the same year. Loic is the 2022 recipient of the Ruth Stephens Gani Medal of the Australian Academy of Science recognizing outstanding contributions to research in human genetics, and was named in Nature Medicine's 2022 Yearbook among 11 early-career researchers "to watch".
In 2024, he was the recipient of the American Society of Human Genetics Early Career Award and a Snow Medical Research Foundation Fellowship to accelerate the deployment of genomic risk prediction in the clinic and improve the benefit of genomic medicine in all populations.
Dr Fleur Garton
NHMRC Early Career FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Fleur Garton is a researcher focused on improving outcomes for those with a neurological disease. She completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (Hons I) in 2008 at the University of Sydney. Pursing an interest in the molecular basis of skeletal muscle function she completed her honours and PhD at the Institute of Neuroscience and Muscle research at the Children's Hospital Westmead. Fleur spent two-years as post-doctoral researcher at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne. She was responsible for modelling the effect of gene dosage using rAAV vectors while helping to contribute to studies on human performance and health. In 2016, Fleur moved to work with Professor Naomi Wray at the Program in Complex Trait Genomics team at the University of Queensland. She was awarded a Bill Gole MND Postdoctoral fellowship from MNDRA in 2016, an NHMRC Early Career Researcher Fellowship (2017-2022) and is now the Scott Sullivan MND Research Fellow (2022). Her research program aims to further understand the genetic mechanisms of motor neurone disease (MND/ALS) using novel genomics analyses. This includes investigations into the use of cell-free DNA and other 'omic data to improve diagnosis and treatment. Fleur currently has research projects running at the Royal Brisbane Womens Hospital and the Mater Hospital together with local and international collaborators. Any potential participants or collaborators are encouraged to contact her on email about these projects.
Ms Anjali Henders
Human Studies ManagerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:As part of the management executive of the Program in Complex Traits Genomics (PCTG) based at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences (IMB) Anjali is responsible for the day-to-day running of the PCTG, including the coordination of their research activities and strategies, research governance and supervison of their high-through put genomics laboratory. Anjali has over 15 years experience in managing complex, large-scale research programmes and specialises in facilitating and managing interdisciplinary collaborations and consortiums.
Prior to moving to UQ, Anjali was the Senior Project Manager for the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory at the Queensland Institute for Medical research (QIMR) where she held an integral role in the management of large human research projects collecting biological samples for down stream genomics. Her significant contribution to these projects has been recognised by her inclusion in publications and commentaries.
Dr Kathryn Kemper
Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Dr Kemper is a postdoctoral fellow in statistical genetics. She joined UQ in 2016 after obtaining a PhD and postdoctoral experience at the University of Melbourne (2006-2016). Her expertise and research interests span a range of topics in quantitative genetics, including genomic prediction, modelling the epidemiological consequences of genetic change in disease and population genetics. Current research areas include:
- genetic analysis of longitudinal traits
- estimation of non-additive genetic effects
- genomic prediction in admixed populations
Dr Allan McRae
Principal Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Associate Professor Sonia Shah
National Heart Foundation Future Leader FellowNational Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow, Senior Principal Research Fellow –Group LeaderInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:My group's research uses large-scale genomic data to address knowledge gaps in disease, with a particular focus on cardiovascular disease.
Research programme
1. Cardiovascular disease research using big-data and genomics: with the goal of improving prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. By focusing on underrepresented groups, including women, my research aims to also address inequity in cardiovascular outcomes. I am the lead of the South Asian Genes and Health in Australia (SAGHA) study, which aims to increase representation of Australian South Asians in cardiovascular and genomics research. See saghaus.org for further details.
2. Drug genomics: I'm interested in using genomic approaches to predict drug effects, including identification of drug repurposing opportunities as well as identifying unknown adverse effects of medication.
3. Liver transplant research: In this collaboration with the QLD Liver Transplant Unit, we are using genomics to understand the effect of normo-thermic perfusion (a new organ storage method) on liver function, with the long-term goal of improving our ability to predict transplant outcomes.
Career summary: I was awarded my PhD from University College London (UK) in cardiovascular genetics. I began my post-doctoral fellowship under the mentorship of Prof Peter Visscher at the Queensland Brain Institute in 2013. Between 2016-2018, I was the lead analyst for the International Heart Failure Genetics Consortium (HERMES). In 2018, I was awarded an NHMRC Early Career Researcher Fellowship to investigate the relationship between cardiovascular and brain-related disorders using large-scale genetic and genomic data, under the mentorship of Prof Naomi Wray. I currently hold a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship.
Recognition:
2024 Australian Academy of Science Ruth Stephens Gani Medal for outstanding contribution to genetics research
2023 1 of 5 global finalists for the Nature Inspiring Women in Science (Scientific Achievement Award)
2023 Lifesciences QLD Rose-Anne Kelso Award
2023: Named in Australia's Top 25 Women in Science by Newscorp
2022 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Award
2022 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award
2021/2022 Australian Superstar of STEM,
2020 Genetic Society of Australasia Early Career Award
2020 Women in Technology Rising Star Science Award
Dr Jian Zeng
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow - Group LeaderInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Dr Jian Zeng is a statistical geneticist and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at the University of Queensland (UQ). He received his PhD in animal breeding and genetics at Iowa State University and joined the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG) at UQ in 2016. His research focuses on the development and application of innovative statistical methods for estimating the genetic architecture and evolutionary signals in complex traits, identifying genetic variants, genes and other molecular intermediates associated with phenotype variation, and predicting trait phenotypes using genome sequence data. In 2019, he was awarded an NHMRC Investigator Emerging Leadership Grant to develop statistical methods and software tools for best predict an individual’s disease risk using genomic and omics data. He was an invited speaker at the prestigious Gordon Research Conference in 2019.
Dr Zhili Zheng
Visiting ScholarInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Students
Ms Jing Guo
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mr Longda Jiang
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mr Irfahan Kassam
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mrs Jennifer Pavlides
Research higher degree (MPhil) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Restu Restuadi
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Costanza Vallerga
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mr Huanwei Wang
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Ying Wang
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Dr Yang Wu
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Angli Xue
Institute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Qian Zhang
Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Admin Support Staff
Research Support Staff
Dr Tian Lin
Principal Research Scientist/Scientific OfficerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:- Research Partnership ManagerInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
Pages
Strawberry DNA extraction activity
Extract and view DNA from a strawberry using common household ingredients.
Get started
The Edge: Genetics
People have known for thousands of years that parents pass traits to their children, but it is only relatively recently that our technology has caught up to our curiosity, enabling us to delve into the mystery of how this inheritance occurs, and the implications for predicting, preventing and treating disease.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get the latest research straight to your inbox.
Stay up-to-date as we answer questions about hot topics, and share the latest news at IMB, Australia’s #1 research institute.
General enquiries
+61 7 3346 2222
imb@imb.uq.edu.au
Media enquiries
IMB fully supports UQ's Reconciliation Action Plan and is implementing actions within our institute.
Support us
Donate to research
100% of donations go to the cause