Science, Technology and Engineering

Hoogenraad Laboratory

Department of Biochemistry

Biosketch - Professor Nick Hoogenraad

Nick completed his Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree in 1965 at the University of Melbourne and proceeded with a PhD in Biochemistry under the supervision of Professor Frank Hird. From 1966 until the completion of his PhD in 1969, he was a Senior Demonstrator in charge of prac classes for agricultural science and medical students. He commenced a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pediatrics, at Stanford University with Professor Norman Kretchmer in 1970 and in 1972 was appointed Assistant Professor in Human Biology at Stanford. During this time, his research focused on the purification and characterization of the enzymes involved in pyrimidine biosynthesis in mammals. He joined the Department of Biochemistry at La Trobe in late 1974 and developed his interests in cellular compartmentation, with a study of the mitochondrial urea cycle enzymes, which led to the isolation and cloning of the mitochondrial enzyme, ornithine transcarbamylase in 1982. Since that time, his interests have centred on the import of proteins into mitochondria and particularly on the role of molecular chaperones in this process and on the isolation of the components of the import machinery mammalian cells.

He was given a personal chair in Biochemistry in 1992 and has been Head of the Department of Biochemistry since 1993, and Head of the School of Molecular Sciences since 1998. He was president of the Australian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), 1997-1998. He was awarded the ASBMB Amersham-Pharmacia Medal in 1994 and the ASBMB Lemberg Medal in 2004. He is currently on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Biochemistry, Protein Engineering Design & Synthesis, and Biological Chemistry.