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Schroder Group
Group Leader
Professor Kate Schroder
NHMRC Leadership Fellow - Group LeaderInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Professor Kate Schroder heads the Inflammasome Laboratory and is Director of the Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland, as an NHMRC Leadership Fellow. Kate's graduate studies defined novel macrophage activation mechanisms and her subsequent postdoctoral research identified surprising inter-species divergence in the inflammatory programs of human versus mouse macrophages. As an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellow in Switzerland, Kate trained with the pioneer of inflammasome biology, Jürg Tschopp. The IMB Inflammasome Laboratory, which Kate heads, investigates the molecular mechanisms governing inflammasome activity and caspase activation, the cellular mediators of inflammasome-dependent inflammation, and mechanisms of inflammasome inhibition by cellular pathways and small molecule inhibitors.
Kate is a co-inventor on patents for small molecule inhibitors of the NLRP3 inflammasome, currently under commercialisation by Inflazome Ltd. Inflazome Ltd was recently acquired by Roche in a landmark deal – one of the largest in Australian and Irish biotech history. The acquisition gives Roche full rights to Inflazome's portfolio of inflammasome inhibitors. Two of the company's drug candidates are in clinical trials for the treatment of debilitating conditions such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and motor neuron disease.
Kate has authored more than 100 publications, featuring in journals such as Science, Cell, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Chemical Biology, Journal of Experimental Medicine and PNAS USA, and her work has been cited more than 17,000 times. Kate is an Editorial Board Member for international journals including Science Signaling, Clinical and Translational Immunology and Cell Death Disease. She is the recipient of the 2019 ANZSCDB Emerging Leader Award, 2019 Merck Research Medal, 2014 Milstein Young Investigator Award, 2013 Tall Poppy Award, 2012 Gordon Ada Career Award, 2010 QLD Premier's Postdoctoral Award, and the 2008 Society for Leukocyte Biology's Dolph Adams Award.
INFLAMMASOME LABORATORY RESEARCH
During injury or infection, our body's immune system protects us by launching inflammation. But uncontrolled inflammation drives diseases such as gout, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease and cancer. The Inflammasome Lab is defining the molecular and cellular processes of inflammation. We seek to unravel the secrets of inflammasomes – protein complexes at the heart of inflammation and disease – to allow for new therapies to fight human diseases.
The Inflammasome Laboratory integrates molecular and cell biology approaches with in vivo studies to gain a holistic understanding of inflammasome function during infection, and inflammasome dysfunction in human inflammatory disease. Current research interests include the molecular mechanisms governing inflammasome activity and caspase activation, the cellular mediators of inflammasome-dependent inflammation, and inflammasome suppression by autophagy and small molecule inhibitors.
Body:Highlights
Professor Kate Schroder is an immunologist fascinated by the biology of the innate immune system.
She is an expert on the inflammasome, a cell signalling pathway that generates inflammation.
Professor Schroder’s PhD studies defined novel activation mechanisms of macrophages, an important cell of the innate immune system, and her subsequent postdoctoral research identified surprising inter-species divergence in the inflammatory programs of human versus mouse macrophages.
As an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellow in Switzerland, she then trained with the pioneer of inflammasome biology, Jürg Tschopp. After returning to Australia, Professor Schroder established her laboratory, which is dedicated to inflammasome research.
The Schroder Lab are defining mechanisms of inflammasome signalling in innate immune cells, with the goal of developing new drugs to fight infection or inflammatory disease. For example, through multidisciplinary collaboration, the Schroder Lab have characterised new anti-inflammatory compounds that inhibit inflammasomes. These are currently under commercialisation for their potential as novel anti-inflammatory drugs.
Professor Schroder is Director of the IMB Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research, and serves on the editorial boards of several major journals, including Science Signaling, Clinical and Translational Immunology, and Cell Death Discovery.
She also served on the Scientific Advisory Board of a new start-up company that is developing inflammasome inhibitors for the treatment of human inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. Professor Schroder is an ARC Future Fellow, and the recipient of international awards such as the Milstein Young Investigator Award from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society, and the Dolph Adams Award from the Society for Leukocyte Biology.
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Researchers
Dr Sabrina Sofia Burgener
SNF Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography: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 Stefan Emming
ARC DECRA FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Stefan has a long-standing interest in trying to understand cellular processes at a detailed molecular level. He did his Master in Biochemistry in a Structural Biology lab, investigating the structure and function of the intracellular innate immune sensors AIM2 and STING. Following a short period at the Biozentrum in Basel (Switzerland), Stefan joined the Molecular Immunology lab of S. Monticelli at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (Bellinzona, Switzerland) to conduct a PhD. After a deep dive into transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in T cells during his PhD, Stefan joined the Inflammasome Lab in 2019 as a Postdoctoral Research Officer and was awarded an ARC DECRA fellowship starting in 2022. His research is focused on the multi-step mechanism of inflammasome activation and its regulation on a molecular level
Dr Mercedes Monteleone
Research Fellow, ARCInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Body:Mercedes joined the Inflammasome Lab as a Postdoctoral researcher in 2014 after completing her PhD at The Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology in Sydney. Mercedes is a microbiologist currently researching host-pathogen interactions.
Ms Joanna Crawford
Senior Research AssistantInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Ms Grace Lawrence
Postdoctoral Research Fellow/Research OfficerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Grace completed a Bachelor of Science and Arts (Biomedical Science, Psychology, and Writing) from the university of Queensland in 2017, with a Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence. During this time, she obtained a UQ summer research scholarship to undertake a project at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, where she studied the genetic diversity of methanogens in permafrost samples. In the year following, Grace entered the world of innate immunity, and was awarded first class honours from the University of Queensland for her work on mitochondrial dynamics as a regulator for macrophage antimicrobial pathways in the Sweet Group (Institute for Molecular Bioscience). In the same year, Grace won the prize for UQ Jacaranda’s Best Short Story Award for her formative creative writing piece, entitled ‘Pagtatawas’.
Following her undergraduate degrees, Grace joined the Inflammasome lab as a Research Assistant in 2019. The inflammasome lab is a group of researchers led by Dr Kate Schroder, which seeks to unravel the secrets of inflammasomes – protein complexes at the heart of inflammation and disease – to allow for new therapies to fight human diseases. Grace’s current research project in this lab aims to better understand signalling pathways that modulate NLRP3 inflammasome activity.
“Being a part of the Schroder laboratory at the IMB has been a thoroughly rewarding experience - not only to be able to commence work on interesting research projects with real-world applications, but also to interact and collaborate with an impressive collection of equally passionate researchers. I’m fortunate to be working with such a talented and diverse group of scientists on the molecular pathways of inflammation!” - Grace
Dr Kathrin Eschke
Postdoctoral Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Dr Rinie Bajracharya
Postdoctoral Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Dr Malvina Pizzuto
Visiting AcademicInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Dr Helen Mostafavi
Postdoctoral Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:Helen's interest in immune cell interactions across the tissue landscape started during her Master's and PhD with Dr. Ali Zaid at the Menzies Health Institute, Griffith University. Her PhD focused on defining the role of Interleukin-17 in virus-induced arthritis and exploring immunomodulation as a means of dampening synovial inflammation and damage. There, she was able to specialise in 3D imaging on optically-cleared tissues and high-dimensional flow cytometry. Helen received her PhD in 2022, before immediately starting a Postdoc position under Dr. Emma Gordon and Dr. Larisa Labzin at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland. Her current research focuses on vascular complications in acute and long COVID-19. Specifically, Helen is developing a novel triple-culture model under air-liquid interface to investigate endothelial dysfunction and explore potential therapeutics in COVID-19.
Miss Emmanuelle Frampton
Principal Research Technician/Scientist/EngineerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Emmanuelle is a research assistant working in the Francois lab at UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience.
Dr Larisa Labzin
UQ Amplify FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor: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.
Dr Mercedes Monteleone
Research Fellow, ARCInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Body:Mercedes joined the Inflammasome Lab as a Postdoctoral researcher in 2014 after completing her PhD at The Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology in Sydney. Mercedes is a microbiologist currently researching host-pathogen interactions.
Dr Yanshan Zhu
Postdoctoral Research Fellow/Research OfficerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Students
Mr Tyron Esposito
PhD student & Casual Senior Research TechnicianInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Ms Xiaohui Wang
Casual Senior Research TechnicianInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Miss Kirsten Kenney
PhD student & Casual Senior Research TechnicianInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Miss Manasa Mellacheruvu
PhD student & Casual Research AssistantInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mr Byron Mobbs
Institute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Jeremy Yap
Casual Senior Research TechnicianInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Ms Brittany Hill
PhD studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Jared Coombs
Casual Senior Research TechnicianInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Professional Staff
Ms Kristina Dunn-Johnston
Casual Senior Administration OfficerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:- Executive Director, Intellectual Property CommercialisationUniQuestMember, Translation Sub-CommitteeInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Finance OfficerInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- NHMRC Emerging Leadership FellowInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- The Jo Underhill IMB Art Award 2023
In memory of Jo Underhill
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