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  • Does a door handle or a phone have more germs?
  • Covid-19 OzGenetics Project Team

    Professor Naomi Wray

    Director, Centre for Population and Disease Genomics
    Joint Appointment
    Queensland Brain Institute
    Professorial Research Fellow
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
    Researcher profile is public: 
    1
    Supervisor: 
    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.

    Dr Larisa Labzin

    ARC Future Fellow
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
    Researcher profile is public: 
    1
    Supervisor: 
    Researcher biography: 

    Dr. Larisa Labzin studies how our innate immune system detects viral infections and how it decodes different signals to mount an appropriate immune response. Dr. Labzin's interest in innate immunity started during her honours training with Prof. Matt Sweet at the IMB, looking at how inflammatory signalling is regulated in macrophages. After gaining more experience while working as a research assistant for Prof. Sweet, she moved to Germany to the University of Bonn for her PhD. At the Univeristy of Bonn, Dr. Labzin investigated the anti-inflammatory effects of High-Density Lipoprotein with Prof. Eicke Latz. Here she discovered novel regulatory pathways that control inflammation. Dr. Labzin then moved to Cambridge, UK as an EMBO postdoctoral fellow to work with Dr. Leo James at the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Biology. In Dr. James' lab Dr. Labzin focused on how viruses are sensed by the innate immune system to trigger inflammation. In particular, Dr Labzin investigated how antibodies change the way viruses trigger inflammation. While in Cambridge, Dr. Labzin was awarded an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship to return to Australia. Larisa returned to the IMB in September 2019 to work with Prof. Kate Schroder. Dr. Labzin is an IMB Fellow and leads an independent research team studying inflammation in response to influenza and SARS-CoV-2.

    Associate Professor Loic Yengo

    Group Leader, Statistical Genomics
    Researcher profile is public: 
    1
    Supervisor: 

    Ms Anjali Henders

    Human Studies Manager
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
    Researcher profile is public: 
    1
    Supervisor: 
    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.

  • Chair in Sustainable Energy Futures
    School of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
  • Research Fellow
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
  • Smythe Group

      Group Leader

    Associate Professor Mark Smythe

    Principal Research Fellow - GL
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
    Researcher profile is public: 
    1
    Supervisor: 
    Body: 

    Highlights

    Associate Professor Mark Smythe is a medicinal chemist. His expertise lies in transforming interesting molecules into high-value medicines.

    His methodology for translating academic discoveries into commercially viable companies has achieved great success. He founded biotech company Protagonist Therapeutics in 2001, which is now a publicly listed company with several compounds in human clinical trials and several others sold to pharmaceutical partners. He and his team worked for 15 years to develop an approach to replace injectable drugs with pills. They took high potency, highly selective peptides that are traditionally broken down quickly by the body, and made them stronger. So, diseases that used to require ‘big-molecule’ injections we can now treat with a ‘constrained peptide’ pill. This has several advantages to the patients and addresses unmet medical needs of various diseases

    Associate Professor Smythe has always had a focus on applied research, making things. He studied a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Townsville. He wanted a PhD that was applied, so he took at position at Biota with a focus on Influenza. After working in the US, he accepted a position at the then 3D Centre in Queensland, now the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB). At IMB he uses his expertise to translate discoveries into new drug candidates.  

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      Researchers

    Students

    Miss Chynna-Loren Sheremeta

    PhD student & Research Officer
    Institute for Molecular Bioscience
    Researcher profile is public: 
    0
    Supervisor: 

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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.

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