Professor Jennifer Stow is a molecular cell biologist, an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and head of the Protein Trafficking and Inflammation research laboratory in The University of Queensland's Institute of Molecular Bioscience (IMB). Her previous leadership appointments include as Division Head and Deputy Director (Research) at IMB (12 years) and she currently serves on national and international advisory boards, editorial boards and steering committees, and as an elected Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).

Jenny Stow received her undergraduate and PhD qualifications at Melbourne's Monash University before undertaking postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine, USA. With training as a microscopist in kidney research, she gained further experience at Yale as a postdoc in the lab of eminent cell biologist and microscopist, Dr Marilyn Farquhar, where protein trafficking was both a theme and a passion. Jenny then took up her first faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Renal Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in Boston USA, where her research uncovered new roles for a class of enzymes, GTPases, in regulating trafficking within cells. At MGH her research also formed part of a highly successful NIH Renal Cell Biology Program. In late 1994, Jenny moved her research lab back to Australia, to The University of Queensland, in late 1994 as a Wellcome Trust International Medical Research Fellow. As part of IMB since, the Stow lab has continued a focus on protein trafficking, including pioneering live-cell imaging, to spearhead their work on trafficking in inflammation, cancer and chronic disease. Major discoveries include identifying new proteins and pathways for recycling adhesion proteins in epithelial cells, inflammatory cytokine secretion in macrophages and immune signalling through Toll-like receptors in inflammation and infection. Small GTPases of the Rab family, signalling adaptors and kinases feature among the molecules studied in the Stow lab for their functional roles and their potential as drug targets in inflammation and cancer. A keen focus is to understand the role of the fluid uptake pathway, macropinocytosis, in controlling inflammation, cancer and mucosal absorption.

Professor Stow has been awarded multiple career fellowships including from American Heart Association, Wellcome Trust and NHMRC. She has published >200 papers, cited over 15,500 times and she is the recipient of awards and honours, most recently including the 2019 President's Medal from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology. She is also academic head of IMB Microscopy, a world-class fluorescence microscopy and image analysis facility. Her research is funded by a variety of agencies and industry partnerships, in addition to NHMRC and ARC, including through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology, QUBIC. The Stow lab work with national and international collaborators and welcome students and postdoctoral trainees to participate in their research. We value having a diverse, inclusive and supportive culture for research and celebrate the many diverse and wonderful successes of Stow lab alumni.

Centre for Solar Biotechnology: Prof Ben Hankamer is the founding director of the Solar Biofuels Consortium (2007) and Centre for Solar Biotechnology (2016) which is focused on developing next generation microalgae systems. These systems are designed to tap into the huge energy resource of the sun (>2300x global energy demand) and capture CO2 to produce a wide-range of products. These include solar fuels (e.g. H2 from water, oil, methane and ethanol), foods (e.g. health foods) and high value products (e.g. vaccines produced in algae). Microalgae systems also support important eco-services such as water purification and CO2 sequestration. The Centre is being launched in 2016/2017 and includes approximately 30 teams with skills ranging from genome sequencing through to demonstration systems optimsation and accompanying techno-economis and life cycle analysis. The Centre teams have worked extensively with industry.

Structural Biology: The photosynthetic machinery is the biological interface of microalgae that taps into the huge energy resource of the sun, powers the biosphere and produces the atmospheric oxygen that supports life on Earth. My team uses high resolution single particle analysis and electron tomography to solve the intricate 3D architecture of the photosynthetic machinery to enable structure guided design of high efficiency microalgae cell lines and advanced artificial solar fuel systems.

Matt Sweet is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Group Leader, and Director of Higher Degree Research (DHDR) at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He was the founding Director of the IMB Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research (2014-2018), also serving as Deputy Head of the IMB Division of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine during this period. Matt studies innate immunity, the body's danger sensing system that responds to infection, injury and dysregulated homeostasis, and the role of this system in health and disease. Matt's research team focuses on manipulating the innate immune system for the development of anti-infective and anti-inflammatory strategies. To do so, his lab characterizes the roles of specific innate immune pattern recognition receptors and their downstream signalling pathways/gene products in inflammatory disease processes, as well as in host responses to bacterial pathogens. He has authored >175 journal articles and book chapters, including in Science (2), Science Translational Medicine, Science Immunology, Nature Immunology, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications (4), PNAS USA (6) and Journal of Experimental Medicine (2), and his career publications have accrued >19,000 citations.

Biography

I was awarded a PhD (The University of Queensland) in 1996 for my research under the supervision of Prof David Hume into gene regulation in macrophages, immune cells with important roles in health and disease. I subsequently undertook a short postdoctoral position in the same laboratory, focusing on the activation of macrophages by pathogen products. I then embarked on a CJ Martin post-doctoral training fellowship with Prof Eddy Liew, FRS at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Returning to The University of Queensland, I had a prominent role within the Cooperative Research Centre for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases (including as UQ node head from 2007-2008) and was appointed as a Group Leader at the IMB in 2007. I have continued fellowship support since this time, including as an ARC Future Fellow, an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (current, from 2021).

Key discoveries

CpG-containing DNA as an activator of innate immunity, and characterization of the receptor (TLR9) detecting this microbial component.

The IL-1 receptor family member ST2 as a critical regulator of innate immunity and inflammation.

Inflammatory and antimicrobial functions of histone deacetylase enzymes (HDACs) in macrophages.

Effects of the growth factor CSF-1 on inflammatory responses in macrophages.

Mechanisms responsible for divergence in TLR responses between human and mouse macrophages, as well as the functional consequences of such divergence.

TLR-inducible zinc toxicity as an antimicrobial weapon of macrophages and the identification of defects in this pathway in cystic fibrosis.

Host evasion strategies used by the bacterial pathogens Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and uropathogenic E. coli.

SCIMP as a novel TLR adaptor that mediates TLR tyrosine phosphorylation and selective cytokine outputs.

Genes and pathways associated with the severity of chronic liver disease.

Molecular mechanisms controlling macrophage immunometabolism, as well as associated inflammatory and antimicrobial responses.

Anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities of the metabolite ribulose-5-phosphate.

Research training

I have supervised or co-supervised 29 completed PhD students and 22 completed honours students, as well as 9 post-doctoral researchers. Many of my former staff and students continue to have active research careers around the world (USA, UK, Europe, Australia), including as independent laboratory heads. I currently supervise 5 PhD students in my laboratory, co-supervise 4 PhD students in other laboratories, and oversee the research activities of 2 post-doctoral researchers in my group. Current and former staff/students have received numerous fellowships and awards during their research careers (e.g. ARC DECRA, NHMRC CJ Martin fellowship, UQ post-doctoral fellowship, Smart State scholarship). I have also examined >25 PhD theses in the fields of innate immunity, inflammation and host defence.

Professional activities

I am an editorial board member of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology and Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, and have served as an editorial board member for several other journals in the past e.g. Immunology and Cell Biology. I have served on NHMRC project grant review panels in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012 (as panel chair) and 2014, NHMRC Ideas panels in 2020 and 2024, NHMRC Investigator panels in 2021 and 2022, as well as a member of the NHMRC RGMS user reference group committee from 2010-2012. I acted as national representative for the Australasian Society of Immunology (ASI) Infection and Immunity special interest group from 2012-2017. At UQ, I served as chair of an animal ethics committee from 2013-2014, and co-organized the UQ Host-Pathogen interaction network from 2007-2010 (prior to the establishment of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre). I am currently Director of Higher Degree by Research at IMB, overseeing HDR student recruitment and training.

I have made extensive contributions to conference organization in my discipline. I co-organized the national TLROZ2009 and TLROZ2012 conferences, I organized the first ever Australasian Society for Immunology (ASI) Infection and Immunity workshop (2009), was chair of the ASI Program Committee and co-organizer of the Infection and Immunity workshop for ASI2017, and I co-organized the annual IMB Inflammation Symposium (2014-2018). I also co-chaired the 2019 World Conference of Inflammation (Sydney, September 2019). In addition, I have been a member of the organizing committee for ASI2009, the 2014 International Cytokine and Interferon Society conference, the Lorne Infection and Immunity conference (2014-2020), and the Brisbane Immunology Group annual meeting (2008 to the present).