Dr Farrah Blades

Farrah completed her Bachelor of Advanced Biological Sciences at La Trobe University, Melbourne. During her undergraduate degree she majored in Biochemistry and Microbiology, topping both of her classes. She then went on to pursue an honours project in Biochemistry, her research comprised of characterising two mouse models of Multiple Sclerosis and assessed disease mitigation in these models using shark derived nanobodies.

Farrah received a H1 honours for which she was awarded the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy (Neuroscience) within the school of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, at the Florey institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Farrah’s PhD focussed on understanding the molecular mechanisms of myelination, with a particular interest in the tyrosine kinase receptor, Tyro3.

During her PhD she published 3 first author research publications, presented her work nationally and internationally and won 3 first place speaker awards as well as undertaking a number of voluntary outreach and committee roles.

After completing her PhD in 2021, Farrah decided to shift her focus into sustainability research, to hone her passion for molecular biology into helping the planet and all its inhabitants. This brought her to the University of Queensland and the Bioinspired design of solar biotechnology systems laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences.

Farrah currently works as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow with Professor Ben Hankamer to characterise and create strains of algae that can produce biofuels and other sustainable products such as bioplastics. Farrah’s current focus is on characterising photosystem II protein using cutting edge cryogenic electron microscopy and single particle analysis with the hopes of resolving PSII structure to below 2A.