Members

I am a multidisciplinary scientist, training initially as a plant biochemist before studying molecular chaperones in mitochondrial targeting as a PhD student (awarded March 2004), and eventually training in biophysical and structural biology in immune receptors as a postdoctoral researcher. I started my independent research career at Monash University with an NHMRC CDA fellowship (2008) followed by a Pfizer Australia Research fellowship (2010) in the area of glycan specificity in bacterial pathogenesis and physiology. I changed research fields when I was recruited to La Trobe University in 2014 as a senior lecturer to establish a laboratory focused on livestock-pathogen interactions in the School of Animal, Plant and Soil Science located in the AgriBio centre. My research is concentrated on aiding animal health with a focus on field-based diagnostics, molecular understanding of the role glycans and glycan-binding proteins play in disease pathogenesis and vaccine development.

Find out more about Profesor Beddoe's research.

Dr Wenyi Li is an NHMRC Investigator (Emerging Leadership Level 1) and Lecturer in Chemistry at the Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe University, Melbourne. His research projects mainly focus on the development of antimicrobials to combat nosocomial infections by using his chemical biology expertise and skillset. By fostering an active collaborative research network, Dr Li has obtained several outstanding successful grants, including 1 CIA NHMRC Investigator EL1 grant and 1 CI NHMRC Ideas Grant, as well as CIA Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant.

Dr Li obtained his Bachelor and Master degree (supervised by Prof Rui Wang) from Lanzhou University, China, and received his doctoral degree from The University of Melbourne under the supervision of Professors John D. Wade and Frances Separovic. After two postdoctoral training with Prof Christian Hackenberger at Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie, Berlin, supported as a Leibniz-DAAD postdoctoral fellow, and with Professors Neil O'Brien-Simpson and Greg Qiao at the University of Melbourne, he relocated to La Trobe University to start his research group by focusing chemical biology and peptide chemistry for novel drug discovery.

Find out more about Dr Li's research.

Grant Drummond is a Professor of Physiology and Co-director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease Research (CCBDR) at La Trobe University. He also serves as Associate Dean Partnerships for the School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment. Grant's research is in the area of cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease with a specific focus on understanding the roles of oxidative stress, the immune system and the gut microbiome in promoting the vascular, cardiac and renal inflammation that contributes to these conditions. Grant's work has provided novel insights into the roles of NADPH oxidase-derived reactive oxygen species as signalling molecules under physiological conditions, and mediators of oxidative damage in vascular disease. His studies have also shed new light on the involvement of both innate (e.g. NLRP3 inflammasome, interleukin-18), and adaptive (B cells, autoantibodies) immune signalling pathways in the development of hypertension and kidney damage. More recently, Grant's team have been exploring the relationship between gut health and cardiovascular disease, with a particular focus on the gut virome. His work is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and the Heart Foundation of Australia.

Find out more about Professor Drummond's research.

Dr Emma Grant leads a research team within the laboratory of Prof Stephanie Gras in the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS), La Trobe University. Her research focuses on identifying and characterising immune cell responses towards different pathogens, with a particular emphasis on influenza virus, which kills more than half a million people worldwide annually. By understanding which immune cells are “superior” in providing protection against viruses and identifying which parts of the virus they “see”, we hope to inform the design of next generation theraputics and vaccines.

Throughout her career, Dr Grant’s research has assessed immune responses in “high-risk” populations such as the elderly, and Indigenous Australians. She has also identified numerous virus-derived targets which induce strong immune responses, representing targets for future therapeutics and vaccines. Her research success, lead to back-to-back Fellowships since the completion of her PhD in 2015 (NHMRC CJ Martin 2016-2020, ARC DECRA 2021-2024), and the award of several highly competitive travel and career development awards, most recently the Lorne Infection and Immunity Mid-Career Development Award.

Find out more about Dr Grant's research.

The Gras Lab is focused on understanding how to combat viral infections.

Viruses are part of day-to-day encounters that our immune system needs to deal with. How the immune system “sees”, recognises and eliminates viral infection is not fully understood.

Indeed, viruses are able to mutate in order to escape the immune system surveillance. If we were to develop better vaccine and drugs, it is essential to understand the mechanism of viral recognition and viral escape prior to this.

Our lab combines both the cellular and structural approaches to understand the immune system action when face with a viral infection.

Find out more about Professor Gras' research.

I am a NHMRC L2 Investigator, an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and a former Broomhead Centenary Fellow.

I completed my PhD and first postdoctoral studies at the University of Würzburg, Germany, where I trained in cell death research and mouse genetics. During this time, I worked with the German Pharma Company Taconic Artemis developing methods to establish novel pre-clinical models of disease.

In 2008, I moved to Australia and joined the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) where I served as a Laboratory Head in the Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division and Head of the Melbourne Genome Editing Centre (MAGEC). My research team specialised in applying CRISPR gene editing techniques to identify critical gene targets required for the development and sustained growth of cancer cells. Recent findings identified DNA repair as fundamental for TP53-mediated tumour suppression (Janic et al., Nature Medicine 2018).

My current research is focused on using advanced genome wide CRISPR screening, including gene activation and base editing in vitro and in vivo (Deng et al., Nature Communications, 2022). At ONJCRI we use these research techniques to amplify the research conducted within all our labs to discover drug resistance factors and targets that enhance immune therapies.

Since joining ONJCRI in 2023, my primary role as CEO of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI) is to steer our Institute towards a new phase of growth and impact by achieving our strategic priorities. This includes fostering collaborations both within ONJCRI and with external entities while capitalising on existing strengths, assets, and successes of ONJCRI.

Find out more about Professor Herald's research.

Prof Hulett completed his doctoral studies in 1994 at The University of Melbourne in on immune cell receptors in inflammation and allergy. He was awarded an NHMRC Peter Doherty Postdoctoral Fellowship (1995-1998) to continue his work on immune receptors at the Austin Research Institute. Prof Hulett moved to the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at The Australian National University in 1999 where he cloned the heparan sulphate-degrading enzyme heparanase and described its important role in inflammatory disease and cancer. Following the awarding of a Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship in 2002, Prof Hulett established an independent laboratory at the JCSMR to study molecular aspects of immune and tumour cell migration. In 2008 Prof Hulett moved his research group to the Department of Biochemistry at La Trobe University.

Find out more about Professor Hulett's research.

Professor Patrick Humbert is the Director of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS).  Patrick is a recognized international leader in cancer research with PhD training in immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia, and postdoctoral training in genetics and cancer research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. Patrick led a lab for over 15 years at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, before becoming La Trobe University’s inaugural Professor of Cancer Biology in 2016. In 2018, Patrick established and became Director of the Research Centre for Molecular Cancer Prevention at La Trobe University. Patrick has received multiple awards including a Merck Fellowship, Special Fellowship of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America, and consecutive Career Development Fellowships and Senior Research Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Patrick’s current research include investigating the molecular mechanisms of tissue architecture in cancer and regeneration, developing the therapeutic targeting of tissue disorganisation for cancer prevention, identifying the evolutionary origins of cancer in the first multicellular animals, and characterising the effects of space and microgravity environments on regeneration and cancer progression.

Find out more about Professor Humbert's research.

Helen Irving is a Professor in Biomedical Sciences and is a member of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS). Helen's current research centres on understanding inflammatory signals at the molecular level to develop new and improved approaches to managing inflammatory conditions.

Helen obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from The University of Melbourne and conducted post-doctoral work at Vanderbilt University (USA) and The University of Kentucky (USA) before returning to Australia to take up an ARC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at La Trobe University. For most of her career, she has been a teaching/research academic based at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University. Helen moved to the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS) at La Trobe University in 2017.

Find out more about Professor Irving's research.

I am a hands-on lab biologist turned data-crunching genome scientist. My lab studies how plants perceive the world around them and interact with their environments by regulation of their genomes. We apply this work with commercial partners who grow a range of agricultural crops including cannabis, opium poppies, barley, oats and peas.

Find out more about Professor Lewsey's research.

The research focus in the Petrovski Lab is microbial genetics specifically mobile genetic elements which include transposons, plasmids and bacteriophages. Current active projects include studying the epidemiology of the Tn5053/Tn402 family and investigating their mechanism of transposition at the molecular level. In addition the laboratory is interested in the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance plasmids and the mechanisms of their conjugation functions as well as proteins that can interfere with their conjugal ability. Another main area of the laboratories research interest focuses on the isolation and genetic characterisation of bacteriophages that specifically infect both clinically important bacteria and environmental bacteria and ways in which they can be used or manipulated in phage therapy or biocontrol. Current active projects include developing bacteriophage cocktails to apply as a reliable method to control operational problems that commonly occur in wastewater treatment plants, as well as the development of novel pharmaceutical products containing bacteriophages to combat infections (in collaboration with the school of pharmacy and Melbourne health). Methods are currently being developed to genetically manipulate bacteriophages in attempts to develop bacteriophage biosensors.

Steve obtained his PhD in 2008 studying the genetic diversity of transposable elements that interact with broad host range plasmids. He then did a three year postdoctoral research position at La Trobe in Bendigo where he worked on isolating bacteriophages to develop a biocontrol method for wastewater foaming. Steve then worked at the department of primary industries where he developed skills in illumina next generation sequencing technology. He then worked as a hospital medical scientist before joining La Trobe University and started up his own research laboratory.

Find out more about Associate Professor Petrovski's research.

Work generated from Prof Poon’s group has been recognised nationally and internationally, with his work being featured in ‘News & Views’ and ‘Research Highlight’ in journals including Nature, Nature Chemical Biology, Journal of General Physiology, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Circulation Research, and featured in >50 mainstream media including The Age, The Australian, South China Morning Post and The Guardian.

To support Prof Poon’s laboratory at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS) in elucidating the mechanism and function of dying cell disassembly, he was awarded a NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship, a NHMRC RD Wright Career Development Fellowship, a LIMS Hoogenraad Fellowship, as well as NHMRC EL2 and L1 Investigator Grants. Prof Poon has also received >$4.4 million research funding as the leading Chief Investigator from NHMRC (Project Grant, Investigator Grant, Fellowships), ARC (Discovery Projects), La Trobe University, as well as philanthropic funders. Prof Poon’s contribution to the scientific and wider community has also been recognised by a Peter Doherty Leading Light Award from the Australian Society for Medical Research, a La Trobe University Research Excellence Award, a Melbourne Protein Group Award Lecture, and a Victorian Young Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy & Science.

Find out more about Dr Poon's research.

Dave has a PhD in radioastronomy and microwave spectroscopy and degrees in chemistry, chemical engineering, and physics. He is boundary-crossing, multi-skilled lateral thinker with unusually broad, highly relevant formal academic training in multiple scientific disciplines. He has developed strong scientific capabilities that allow him to find novel solutions to complex problems. He focuses strongly on fundamental science that can be translated into tangible impact. He has published over 250 research papers (e.g. Chemical Reviews, Chemical Society Reviews, Nature Materials, Nature Machine Intelligence, Angewandte Chemie, PNAS, Science Advances, Advanced Materials) and book chapters, almost 60 research and client reports, is an inventor on 25 patents. His current H-index is 62 and i10 index (number of papers with >10 citations) is 190. He is ranked 44 among all researchers at La Trobe in terms of the number of publications since 2015 and number 36 at La Trobe in terms of the total number of citations. Internationally, he is ranked 157th out of 95,000 medicinal chemists, and 999th out of 520,000 chemists worldwide (Mendeley 2023).

Find out more about Professor Winkler's research.