Scientific Advisory Board

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 Richard Flavell FRS 

Professor of Immunobiology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department Chair, Immunobiology, The Anlyan Center for Medical Research and Education, Yale University School of Medicine After earning bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in biochemistry at Hull, Flavell did postdoctoral work in the Netherlands and Switzerland and then joined the faculty of the University of Amsterdam.

From the Netherlands, he moved to London, where he was head of the Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill.

Then came an offer to join a commercial enterprise, the biotechnology startup Biogen, in Cambridge, Mass.

When then-Yale Dean Leon E. Rosenberg, M.D., came looking for someone to head the medical school’s new program in immunobiology, he decided he was ready for a return to academia.

Professor Ian Frazer AC, FAA, FRS

Ambassador and Chair of Translational Research Institute Foundation Board, Translational Research Institute, The university of Queensland Diamantina 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 

Principal Research Leader and NHMRC 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

Director, 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 Jenny Stow

Professor Jennifer L. Stow, PhD is Deputy Director (Research), Associate Dean of Research and head of the Protein Trafficking and Inflammation laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland, Australia. With a PhD from Monash University, Jenny trained at Yale University School of Medicine (USA) and was then appointed as an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School before joining The University of Queensland with career fellowships from the Wellcome Trust and NHMRC. As a molecular cell biologist she has made seminal contributions to macrophage and cytokine research, currently serving on journal editorial boards, peer review committees, advisory and academic boards.

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.

Professor Jane Visvader

Jane Visvader is Joint Head of the Division of Stem Cells and Cancer and the Breast Cancer Laboratory at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. She carried out PhD studies in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Adelaide, and held subsequent positions as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, San Diego, and Research Associate/Instructor at the Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston.

In 1998, she made a transition to mammary gland development and breast cancer, with her appointment to the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium as a Group Leader, based at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Important contributions that her group has made to the mammary gland field include the prospective isolation of both mouse and human mammary stem cells and the identification of luminal progenitors as the ‘cell of origin’ in BRCA1 mutation carriers.