Professor Brandon Wainwright
Highlights
Professor Brandon Wainwright AM is a geneticist, renowned for discovering the genetic pathway that causes most human cancer. He is skilled in molecular genetics, where he is using genetic approaches to dig through DNA and find the genes that cause disease.
He commenced using these skills to locate the cystic fibrosis gene, but it was when isolating a gene responsible for a rare form of brain cancer called Medulloblastoma, that he discovered the ‘Hedgehog Pathway.'
He discovered not only the first brain cancer-causing gene but also a pathway involved in most cancers of all types.
The primary focus of his current research is brain cancer because it is the most common cause of death in children and the most common cause of cancer-related death in people under 40. He is also applying his expertise to common cancer generally (particularly skin cancer), and neurodegenerative disease.
Success for Professor Wainwright will be seeing a child cured of brain cancer that would otherwise have died. And he is confident that he can help make it happen.
He is formerly Director of UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where he proudly leads a team of talented discovery scientists translating their findings to life-changing applications.
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Researcher biography
Professor Brandon Wainwright AM is Co-Director of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre and leads a laboratory within the UQ Diamantina Institute focused on understanding the genetic pathways behind medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumour that occurs predominantly in children. He is Chair of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Australia, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Robinson Research Institute and Chair of the Board of the South Australian Immunogenomics Cancer Institute (SAIGENCI), and serves on the boards the Australian Genome Research Facility as well as several national and international scientific review committees, including the MRFF Brain Tumour Roadmap Committee.
Professor Wainwright completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at The University of Adelaide, after which he secured a postdoctoral fellowship with St Mary's Hospital at Imperial College London. During his six years at Imperial he worked on the first human genome project and also became a Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow. He returned to Australia in 1990 to join UQ's Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology (now IMB) and led the Institute for Molecular Biology until 2019.
Professor Wainwright is a geneticist, renowned for discovering the genetic pathway that causes most human cancer. He is skilled in molecular genetics, where he is using genetic approaches to dig through DNA and find the genes that cause disease. He commenced using these skills to locate the cystic fibrosis gene, but it was when isolating a gene responsible for a rare form of brain cancer called Medulloblastoma, that he discovered the role of the ‘Hedgehog Pathway' in common human cancer.
Featured projects | Duration |
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Tissue repair and cancer |