2021 INVITED SPEAKERS

Professor Alex Brown (BMed, MPH, PhD, FRACP (hon.), FCSANZ,  FAAHMS) is the Aboriginal Health Equity Theme Leader at SAHMRI, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Adelaide.

Alex is an internationally leading Aboriginal clinician/researcher who has worked his entire career in Aboriginal health in the provision of public health services, infectious diseases and chronic disease care, health care policy and research. He has established three highly regarded research groups over the last 15 years, and currently leads a large research group (50% of whom identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait islander Australians). Much of his work has been at the difficult interface of geographical isolation, complex cultural context, severe socioeconomic disadvantage, inequitable access to and receipt of care and profound health disparities.

His transdisciplinary program of research focuses on documenting the burden and contributors to health inequality in Indigenous Australians, with a primary focus on cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and cancer. Since commencing at SAHMRI 8 years ago, he has overseen the establishment of an integrated centre of excellence in Indigenous chronic disease and public health research. He leads projects in CVD epidemiology and policy; the social, clinical, and biological correlates of diabetes and its complications; intervention trials; documenting cancer inequalities and how best to overcome them; innovative mixed-methods primary care research; and evaluations of health care models, systems and programs.

Mika Sakurai is Associate Professor in Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo), Tohoku University, Japan. She joined ToMMo in 2013 and manages microarray-based genotyping facility and education and training section under the ToMMo’s missions to conduct genome cohort studies and develop biobank.

She received a Ph. D. in molecular biology from the University of Tokyo and worked there as a Research Associate prior to joining ToMMo.

Professor Craig Pennell is the Chair in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Head of Discipline at the University of Newcastle, and Senior Staff Specialist in Maternal Fetal Medicine (John Hunter Hospital). In addition to his subspecialty training in maternal fetal medicine, he has a PhD in fetal physiology and completed postdoctoral training in molecular genetics in Toronto.

Professor Pennell has managed high risk pregnancies as a subspecialist for over 15 years in Canada, Perth, and now Newcastle and his clinical work focuses on preterm birth prevention and pregnancy care after stillbirth. In addition to research, teaching and clinical medicine, he is the Foundation Scientific Director of the Newcastle 1000 Family Study (NEW1000) and Chair of the National Scientific Advisory Group of Red Nose.

Professor Pennell’s research is best categorised as personalised medicine in perinatal health and the developmental origins of health and disease. His research is focussed on the use of genetics and genomics to predict and prevent preterm birth and non-communicable diseases across the lifespan.

Over his research career, he has published more 250 papers, been cited over 16000 times and been awarded more than $29M in competitive research grants.

Rose Upton completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours I) majoring in Biological Sciences at The University of Newcastle in 2016. She has been working with the Conservation Biology Research Group at the University of Newcastle since 2014 where she completed her PhD titled, “Development of sperm cryopreservation and assisted reproductive technologies for the conservation of threatened Australian tree frogs” in 2020.

Amphibians are experiencing unprecedented declines worldwide, with recent studies estimating 40-50% of amphibians are at risk of extinction. Within Australia, 46 species (approximately 20% of all Australian frogs) are either extinct or threatened with extinction. Rose’s work has had an emphasis on the conservation of the endangered green and golden bell frog, Litoria aurea, though she has worked with many Australian amphibian species. Rose was recently involved in a project funded by the federal department of Agriculture, Water, and Environment (DAWE) aiming to collect and store cryopreserved sperm from several amphibian species effected by the 2019/20 bushfires.

Rose has recently moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the United States to begin her postdoctoral research at the Aquatic Germplasm and Genetic Resources Center at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center. Her research aims to develop germplasm repository capabilities for the aquatic biomedical models Xenopus laevis and Ambystoma mexicanum.

A/Prof Catchpoole was appointed Head of the Tumour Bank at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in 2001, where he has established a tissue-based research program within the Children’s Cancer Research Unit of The Kids Research Institute.

A/Prof Catchpoole brings with him extensive real-world experience in the operations, governance and regulatory requirements around which biobank driven research must be practiced. He has experience in the micro-management of teams of biobankers and research professionals as well as the strategic management of valuable biobanking infrastructure within a public hospital. He has built a strong record for professional networking, bringing diverse professionals from across the nation into collaborations with singular themes. This includes being a founding member and first President of The Australasian Biospecimens Network Association (ABNA).

His leadership in these and other areas has been recognized across the translational research disciplines and has contributed to a number of committees at local, state and national levels. In 2019, he was elected by his international peers to the position of President of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER).

Professor Jennifer Byrne is Director of Biobanking with NSW Health Pathology and conjoint Professor of Molecular Oncology in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney.

Having spent much of her scientific career analyzing childhood and adult cancers at a molecular level, Professor Byrne’s current research interests include improving the operations of human tissue banks, and the detection and analysis of biomedical research papers that describe wrongly identified nucleotide sequence reagents.

Simon Dillon has been involved in agriculture and food production for 35 years with roles in research, extension, production, and management.

A research scientist in different fields, but for the last 20 years primarily a microbiologist in beverage fermentation (wine, vinegar and recently beer, cider and non-alcoholic beverages). His current role is the management of the largest microbial fermentation culture collection in the southern hemisphere, with some yeast dating back to the late 1930’s.

His team provides researchers and production companies with access to greater than six thousand yeast and bacterial strains predominantly from winemaking environments. In 2015 the AWMCC was crucial in the isolation and characterisation of 3 species of yeast from a 220-year-old beer bottle that was retrieved from a ship that ran aground in 1797 and led to the development of a commercial beer product 3 years later.

Dr Megan Penno is the National Project Manager for the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity (ENDIA) study and Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

ENDIA is the first study in the world to explore how environmental exposures from pregnancy through early life may contribute to, or protect against, the development of childhood type 1 diabetes. Megan was appointed to manage ENDIA at the project’s inception in 2012 and has played a central role in establishing and expanding the cohort, which completed recruitment of 1500 mother-baby pairs in December 2019. Drawing on her experience in ‘omics research, Megan was the first author of the published ENDIA protocol in 2013, and has developed the sample and data collection strategies that will underpin all future investigations involving ENDIA participants.

Megan is now leading her own research project within the ENDIA study aimed at identifying changes in the plasma proteins of mothers during pregnancy, and in babies during early life, that may indicate a child is at increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes – even before the destructive autoimmune process has commenced. This work is funded by JDRF Australia, the Leona M. and Harry B. Hemsley Charitable Trust, and Diabetes South Australia.

Rym Ben Othman is a researcher passionate about the impact of research in health and specifically on those who need it the most: the youngest and the poorest.

Rym had a PhD in cellular and molecular biology focused on host immune system and metabolism in the context of infectious disease. She then switched her research interest towards infant vaccination, interventions in early life and implementing multi-omics cohort studies in low resources setting. She was involved in managing multi-sites projects, standardizing processes, and implementing clinical studies across different continents.

She co-founded “The Accelerator” a research service platform” with Professor Tobias Kollmann within Telethon Kids Institute in Perth with a mission to accelerate access to high throughput, cutting edge analytical pipelines and technologies to increase research outcomes, maximise progress, translation and impact of research findings.

Simon Lake is an Accreditation Specialist working for NATA (National Association of Testing Authorities), who have recently commenced offering accreditation in Australia against ISO 20387 (General Requirements for Biobanking).

With a background in analytical chemistry and over 20 years of experience working in Biotechnology, from Big Pharma to smaller CROs working at the interface of pre-clinical / clinical trials, Simon was chosen by NATA to assist in the roll-out of this new, internationally recognised biobanking standard.

Peter Cuneo is Manager, Seedbank & Restoration Research at the Australian PlantBank, Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan where he is program leader for the seedbank, including the statewide threatened species seed program. Peter’s main research interest is restoration ecology; including threatened plant translocations, management of invasive species and restoration techniques for grassy woodland ecosystems.