Ms Grace Lawrence

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