Research Workshop 2018 - Keynote Speakers

INTERNATIONAL GUEST SPEAKER:

Professor Derek Mann, Dean of Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Newcastle University, UK.

Derek Mann is a molecular cell biologist trained at University College London (PhD) and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (postdoc). In 2006 he was appointed Professor of Hepatology at Newcastle University following academic posts leading up to a personal Chair at the University of Southampton. He leads the Newcastle Fibrosis Research Group that take multi-disciplinary and multi-organ approaches to illuminate the molecular mechanisms leading to fibrosis and cancer in chronically injured tissues. The aim being to translate this research into therapeutics for chronic diseases of the liver and other organs. His notable discoveries in hepatology to date include functions for serotonin and angiotensin systems in liver fibrosis, epigenetic and transcriptional control of myofibroblast phenotype and function, epigenetic inheritance as a determinant of fibrogenesis in liver disease and the role of NF-kB and neutrophils in liver ageing and cancer. Derek has published in excess of 160 publications that according to Scopus have to date accrued a total of 7,000 citations and an h-index of 51. In 2016 he was appointed Dean of Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Newcastle University and in 2017 was elected a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in recognition of his contributions to medical sciences.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Professor Minoti Apte, OAM 

MBBS (Hons), MMedSci, PhD
Professor of Medicine and Director, Pancreatic Research Group, UNSW Sydney

An internationally renowned medical researcher into pancreatic disease, Professor Minoti Apte’s contribution to the University of New South Wales and the wider community extends well beyond her laboratory. In 2014, she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia and she received the 2015 NSW Premier's Award for Woman of the Year, in recognition of her contribution to medical research, tertiary education and the community. Most recently, her work in pancreatic cancer research was recognised with the Professor Rob Sutherland Make a Difference Award presented at part of the Cancer Institute NSW 2016 Premier’s Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research. In 2017, she was wawrded the Lady mary Fairfax Distinguished researcher Award by the Ingham Institute.

A Professor of Medicine and Director of the Pancreatic Research Group at UNSW, Prof Apte is internationally acknowledged as a leading researcher in the field of pancreatic injury and is particularly recognised for her pioneering work in pancreatic fibrogenesis, having been the first in the world to develop a method to isolate and culture pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs).  Her Group was the first to establish the role of these cells in the scar tissue of chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. This scar tissue is responsible for significant pancreatic dysfunction and for cancer progression.  Her group was also the first in the world to show that the pancreatic stellate cell helped pancreatic cancers grow and spread, and she is currently leading pre-clinical studies of a new combination therapy to help improve treatment outcomes. Professor has published over 120 research papers, and her work has received over 6400 citations. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Pancreatology, one of the two leading specialist journals in the field.

Professor Apte served as postgraduate coordinator within the South Western Sydney Clinical School from 2001-2016, where she nurtured the talent of our PhD, Masters and Honours students, in addition to direct supervision of her own higher degree students. She has served/serves at senior levels on several key committees within the University as well as on committees of national and international organisations relevant to her Discipline, including the GESA Research Comittee.

In addition to her role within UNSW Medicine and the wider discipline of Pancreatology, Professor Apte is an active member of the Marathi Association of Sydney, which serves Sydney’s large Indian population. She is an accomplished Indian classical dancer and choreographer, and has served on the Association’s organising committee, provided programs for community radio, plays an active role organising and performing in cultural events and provides mentorship and career advice to new migrants in her community.

Professor Emad El-Omar 

Professor El-Omar graduated in Medicine from Glasgow University, Scotland, and trained as a gastroenterologist. He worked as a Visiting Scholar/Scientist at Vanderbilt University, TN, and National Cancer Institute, MD, USA, and was Professor of Gastroenterology at Aberdeen University, Scotland, for 16 years before taking up the Chair of Medicine at St George & Sutherland Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Gut. His research interests include the gut microbiome, inflammation driven GI cancer and IBD. He is the Director of the Microbiome Research Centre at St George Hospital, Sydney.

Professor Mark A Febbraio

Mark Febbraio is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the NHMRC, is the Head of the Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory and Head of the Division of Diabetes & Metabolism at The Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia. He is also the CSO of N-Gene Research Laboratories Inc., a USA based Biotechnology Company and the Founder and CSO of the recently incorporated company Kinomedica. His research is focussed on understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with exercise, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer and his aim is to develop novel drugs to treat lifestyle related diseases. He has authored over 240 peer reviewed papers in leading journals and has over 28,000 career citations. He has won prizes at international, national and institutional levels including the A K McIntyre Prize for significant contributions to Australian Physiological Science (1999), the Colin I Johnson Lectureship by the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia (2006) the ESA/ADS Joint Plenary Lecture (2009), the Sandford Skinner Oration from the University of Melbourne (2011), Eureka Scientific Prize Finalist (2013) and the Kellion Award for the Australian Diabetes Society (2017).

Professor Christopher Heeschen

Prof Heeschen obtained his Medical Degree in 1997 from the Free University of Berlin (Germany). And his PhD in 2001 from Stanford University (USA). Prof Heeschen became an independent investigator in 2004 as Professor of Experimental Oncology and Transplantation and Head of the Department Experimental at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich (Germany). In 2008 he moved to the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) as a founding member of the Clinical Research Programme. In 2013, he became the lead of the new Centre for Stem Cells in Cancer & Ageing at Barts Cancer Institute, London, UK. In March 2018, Prof Heeschen was recruited to UNSW under the SHARP program to establish his translational research programme at the Lowy Cancer Research Institute (Randwick Campus) and the Ingham Institute (Liverpool Campus). Building on his original discovery of pancreatic cancer stem cells and the heterogeneity therein, his lab is now working on newly identified key epigenetic and metabolic regulators of the stemness signalling network in cancer stem cells. Please Stem Cells & Cancer Group for more details on his lab-based work. 

Prof Heeschen has published more than 150 articles in prestigious scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, The Lancet, Cancer Cell, Cell Stem Cell, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and PNAS, among others. His work has been cited more than 26,000 times (GoogleScholar). Prof Heeschen has made major original contributions to the field of stem and vascular cell biology that have advanced our understanding of the basic processes of stem cell function and trafficking. His research has been recognised through numerous international awards and has earned him an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for pancreatic cancer research.

Professor David Hume

Professor David Hume FMedSci FRSE has research interests in functional genomics and the biology of macrophages. He is a graduate of the Australian National University and did postdoctoral research in the Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford, John Curtin School in Canberra and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.  He joined the Centre for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Queensland in 1998, and was subsequently a senior researcher in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB).  At the IMB he was Director of the ARC Centre for Functional and Applied Genomics and Deputy Director of the CRC for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases.  He was also a senior member of the FANTOM Consortium, led by RIKEN in Japan.  In 2006, he was appointed Director of The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh.  He returned to Australia in 2018, and is currently a Professorial Fellow at Mater Research Institute-University of Queensland.