Science, Technology and Engineering

Vaux Laboratory

Department of Biochemistry

Biosketch - Professor David Vaux

Professor Vaux graduated M.B.B.S. from University of Melbourne in 1984. He was resident at The Royal Mellbourne Hospital in 1985. The following year, he commenced post-graduate studies at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, where he had previously spent a year undertaking a BMedSci degree in 1981 in Professor G.J.V. Nossal's lab. After completing his Ph.D. in 1989, he went to Stanford University for post-doctoral studies. In 1993, he returned to The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute where he stayed until moving to La Trobe University in January 2006.

Professor Vaux is best known for his work on the mechanisms of cell death (apoptosis). He discovered that the role of the Bcl-2 gene was to inhibit cell death in 1988, and showed that failure of the cell death mechanism could lead to the development of cancer. By expressing human Bcl-2 in the worm C. elegans, he showed that apoptosis of mammalian cells and programmed cell death during worm development were the same, evolutionarily conserved process. His lab identified the first cellular members of the Inhibitor of Apoptosis (IAP) family members, and also their mammalian antagonists.

Professor Vaux was awarded the Glaxo-Wellcome Medal in 2000 (shared with his long term collaborator Andreas Strasser), the Victoria Prize in 2003, and a Federation Fellowship in 2006. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and is on the editorial boards of The Journal of Cell Biology and Cell Death and Differentiation.