Our Leadership Team

Senior Management

Professor Mathew Vadas
Executive Director
Professor Vadas trained in medicine at the University of Sydney and as a physician at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital before completing a doctorate at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. After postdoctoral work at Harvard, he returned to Australia and built up a significant research enterprise in Adelaide. He was a chief initiator and inaugural Director of the Hanson Centre for Cancer Research (now Hanson Institute). Professor Vadas has also contributed strongly to the Australian biotechnology sector, being involved in the establishment of two ASX listed biotechnology companies. He currently chairs the Medical Research Advisory Board of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation and serves on several NHMRC committees, the Board of  Governors of  the SMILE Foundation and supports the Contemporary Collection Benefactors of the Art Gallery of NSW. His research embodies a multidisciplinary approach to discover new molecules or pathways that may uncover fundamental phenomena of nature and/or lead to novel therapeutics. Using techniques of cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics and genomics, he has primarily focused on endothelial and leucocyte biology with special emphasis on cytokines or growth factors and pathways of cellular signalling.

Professor Geoff McCaughan
Assistant Director, Faculty and Head, Liver Immunobiology Group
Professor McCaughan is head of the Liver Immunology group in the Centenary Institute. Upon completion of his postdoctoral training at the University of Oxford in 1986 as a CJ Martin Fellow, he returned to Sydney where he developed the basic research programme for the AW Morrow Gastroenterology and Liver Centre at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital of which he is now the Director. His current research interests include the immunopathogenesis of human chronic liver disease, liver autoimmunity, liver transplant tolerance and molecular analysis of hepatitis C virus.

Dr Nick Pearce
Chief Operating Officer
Dr Pearce obtained a PhD in 1991 and a Master of Business Administration in 1994 from the University of Sydney. His PhD studies were undertaken at the University of Sydney and Stanford University in the field of transplantation immunology. On returning to Australia in 1991, Dr Pearce joined the Centenary Institute as a Postdoctoral Research Officer.

Faculty

Professor Warwick Britton
Head, Mycobacterial Group
Professor Britton graduated from the University of Sydney and trained in medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and in tropical medicine at the University of Liverpool. After working in a rural hospital in Nepal for three years, he developed an interest in tuberculosis and leprosy and undertook a PhD on the Immunology of Leprosy at the University of Sydney. He spent a further four years in Nepal establishing a research laboratory in a leprosy hospital near Kathmandu in order to apply the findings of modern research to improve the care of leprosy patients.Professor Britton returned to Australia in 1990 to establish the Mycobacterial Research Group in the Centenary Institute, where his research group studies the immunology of tuberculosis and leprosy, and works on the development of new vaccines against tuberculosis.

Professor Barbara Fazekas de St Groth
Head, T Cell Biology Group
Professor Fazekas trained in medicine at the University of Sydney and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital before undertaking a PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and postdoctoral studies at Stanford University. She returned to Australia in 1991 and set up her own laboratory studying the regulation of T lymphocyte responses in vivo, with particular application to autoimmune and allergic disease. Her current interests include the functions of dendritic cell subsets in directing the T cell immune response, and interactions between regulatory T cells and dendritic cells, with particular reference to inflammatory bowel disease.

Professor John Rasko
Head, Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Group
Professor Rasko is an internationally recognised researcher in the fields of gene transfer, stem and cancer cell biology. After completing his medical and haematology training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he undertook PhD studies at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute under the supervision of Professor Don Metcalf. He subsequently spent three years at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle as a prestigious Damon Runyon Walter Winchell Foundation Fellow. In 1999 he returned to Australia to establish the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Centenary Institute. He is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney; Senior Staff Haematologist at the Sydney Cancer Centre and Director of the Cell and Molecular Therapy Unit, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Associate Professor Christopher Semsarian
Head, Molecular Cardiology Group
Associate Professor Semsarian is a molecular cardiologist with a strong research interest in genetic heart disorders, with a particular focus on sudden cardiac death in the young. After completing his medical and cardiology training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he undertook a highly successful PhD in the field of striated muscle biology. Associate Professor Semsarian continued his research in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston, before returning to the Centenary Institute in 2002 to establish and head the Agnes Ginges Centre for Molecular Cardiology.

Professor Wolfgang Weninger
Head, Immune Imaging Group
Professor Weninger received his training in clinical dermatology at the Department of Dermatology, University of Vienna Medical School, Vienna, Austria (1992-1999). He then spent four years at Harvard Medical School, US, where he investigated the mechanisms of immune cell migration in vivo. Between 2003-2007, Professor Weninger was a Faculty member at the Wistar Institute and the Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania, US. Recently, he was appointed Chair of the Department of Dermatology, University of Sydney. Professor Weninger's research focuses on understanding the molecular basis of immune cell migration as well as immune cell interactions with pathogens and cancer cells. At Centenary his group makes use of advanced imaging technology, primarily intravital two-photon microscopy, in a variety of infectious and tumour models.

Associate Professor Pu Xia
Head, Signal Transduction Group
Associate Professor Xia is head of Signal Transduction research group at the Centenary Institute. After completing his medical and endocrinology training in Beijing, China, he spent three years at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral research fellow. In 1996 he moved to Australia and became a full-time basic scientist (from an endocrinologist) with a specific interest in cell signal transduction. He initiated the first Australian-based studies on sphingolipid signalling and has since made considerable contributions to the area. His research team has shown a consistent research profile being placed at the forefront of defining the signalling mechanisms of sphingosine kinase, characterising the functional structure of the enzyme and investigating its (patho-)physiologic implications in human diseases, specifically in cancer and diabetes.