Scientific Advisory Board

The Centenary Institute's Scientific Advisory Board comprises world leading scientists who offer their expertise to support Centenary.

Professor Sir Marc Feldmann (Chair)
Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College London, UK
Professor Feldmann's interests focus on molecular mechanisms of autoimmune diseases, with a special interest in the role of cytokines in disease. These interests range from gene regulation of cytokines, how innate and adaptive immune responses intersect via NFkB, TLR and cytokines, and extends to novel therapeutic approaches for autoimmune or other diseases. His work has the long-term intent of helping develop new therapies, so called translational research. Professor Feldmann's work has led to new treatments for rheumatoid arthritis based on the blocking of TNFα.

Professor Valerie Beral
Director, Cancer Research UK Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, UK
Professor Beral studied medicine at the University of Sydney. After a few years of clinical work in Australia, New Guinea and the UK, she spent almost 20 years at London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine working in the Department of Epidemiology. For the last 20 years she has been the Director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit in Oxford. Major focuses of her research include the role of reproductive, hormonal and infectious agents in cancer. She has published widely on the incidence of cancer in people infected with HIV, and is principal investigator of the International Collaboration on HIV in Cancer.

Professor Ian Frazer FAA, FRS

CEO and Director of Research, Translational Research Institute Pty Ltd, Brisbane Australia

Professor Frazer is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Translational Research Institute* (TRI) in Brisbane, Australia.

Internationally-renowned for the co-creation of the technology for the cervical cancer vaccines, Professor Frazer began his career as a renal physician and clinical immunologist in Edinburgh, Scotland before emigrating in 1981 to Melbourne, Australia. He continued his clinical training and pursued studies in viral immunology and autoimmunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research with Professor Ian Mackay. In 1985, Professor Frazer accepted a teaching post with The University of Queensland and was appointed Director of The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in 1991. In early 2011, Professor Frazer relinquished directorship of the Institute to commence in-post as CEO of the TRI. He retains an active research program at the Institute in immune responses to cancer.

Professor Frazer was awarded the 2005 CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science and was selected as Queenslander of the Year, and Australian of the Year in 2006. He was also awarded the 2008 Prime Minister's Prize for Science, the 2008 Balzan Prize for Preventative Medicine, the 2009 Honda Prize and was recently elected as a Fellow of the esteemed Royal Society of London.

*[TRI will be one of only a few centres in the world to research, trial and manufacture breakthrough drugs in one location. Partners are The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Mater Medical Research Institute and the Princess Alexandra Hospital]

Professor Michael Good
Australia Fellow, Griffith University
Professor Good heads the Laboratory of Vaccines for the Developing World at the Glycomics Institute of Griffith University on the Gold Coast. Currently he is the Chairman of the National Health and Medical Research Council.  He is the past Director of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and a past President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI). Professor Good's interests are in the field of immunity and immunopathogenesis to malaria and group A streptococcus/ rheumatic fever, with particular relevance to the development of vaccines

Professor Matthias W. Hentze
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany

Professor Hentze’s research interests range from basic posttranscriptional gene regulatory mechanisms (translation, mRNA stability, NMD, miRNAs) to diseases of RNA metabolism and iron disorders. He also co-founded and co-directs the "Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit", a joint interdisciplinary and translational research unit of the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University and the EMBL. At present, his work focuses on uncovering links between metabolism and gene regulation.

Professor David Hunter
Director, Harvard Centre for Cancer Prevention, Harvard School of Public Health, US
Professor Hunter's principal research interests are the etiology of cancer in women, particularly breast, ovarian and skin cancer. He is an investigator on the Nurses' Health Study, a long-running cohort of 121,000 US women, and is project director for the Nurses' Health Study II, a newer cohort of 116,000 women. He also analyses inherited susceptibility to cancer and other chronic diseases using molecular techniques and studying molecular markers in environmental exposures. Dr Hunter is the Director for Harvard Centre for Cancer Prevention.

Professor Axel Ullrich
Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Germany
Professor Ullrich is a pioneer in cancer research and is responsible for the discovery of the HER2/neu oncogene, the basis for Herceptin (Trastuzumab), the breakthrough therapeutic for breast cancer. Trastuzumab has not only delivered a major clinical benefit to women (a 50% decrease in tumour recurrence) not seen since the introduction of tamoxifen a decade ago, but also initiated the era of personalised medicine. His work in the field of signal transduction has elucidated major fundamental molecular mechanisms, such as protein phosphorylation, that govern the physiology of normal cells and allowed insights into pathophysiological mechanisms of major human diseases.

More recently, Prof Ullrich has been responsible for developing the first multi-targeted kinase inhibitor, SU11248/SUTENT, for the treatment of cancer. SUTENT has recently passed Phase III studies and is under consideration for approval for treatment of malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumours and metastatic renal cell carcinoma