Biomedical Sciences experts

Dr Garth Maker

Metabolomics and mass spectrometry, profiling biological samples

Dr Garth Maker’s primary area of research is the clinical applications of metabolomics and mass spectrometry. These technologies allow new ways to diagnose, monitor and treat disease. Dr Maker has specifically focused on developing the tools to determine the metabolite profile of a range of different biological samples, including blood, urine and tissue.

Dr Maker is part of both the Separation Science and Metabolomics Laboratory at Murdoch and the national research network Metabolomics Australia.
 
His research is applied to a very broad range of projects across all areas of life science including agriculture, animal health, cancer, chronic disease, drug abuse, drugs in sport, food safety, environmental health and microbiology.

Dr Phil Stumbles

Respiratory allergy and infections, early-life origins of disease, dendritic cells in adaptive immunity and tolerance

Dr Sarah Etherington

Neuroscience; function of the visual cortex

Dr Sarah Etherington’s research is broadly concerned with unravelling the function of the brain and spinal cord.

Her primary research focus is the function of the visual cortex - the area of the brain responsible for vision - during infancy. This collaboration with researchers at the University of Queensland uses sophisticated techniques to map changes in information flow through the brain as it matures. This work has implications for some of the most devastating and mysterious diseases of the developing human brain, including schizophrenia and autism.

As a Lecturer in Physiology in the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Dr Etherington is also involved in collaborative projects looking at how the nervous system develops in Australian marsupials.

Dr Andrew Currie

Newborn immunity, vaccine trials, cancer immune therapies

Dr Andrew Currie investigates how an immune system develops and defends a person during the first few years of life. He is researching why infants and children, particularly those born prematurely, are more prone to infection. He is part of an international team running a world first clinical study on innate immune function in pre-term infants (the PREDICT study).

Dr Currie is also examining how vaccines work in collaboration with research at Princess Margaret Hospital and works with a team at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital to test new immune therapies for cancers such as mesothelioma.

Dr Gerrard Eddy Jai Poinern

Applied nanotechnology and bionanotechology

An applied nanotechnology and bionanotech expert, Dr Gerrard Eddy Jai Poinern leads the development of a nanomembrane for the repair of skin burns, and has pioneered the manufacture of "nano-bone by wet synthesis" methods.

Dr Poinern is part of the strategic India-Australian scientific collaboration for arsenic removal in contaminated water, the nanotechnology chair and foundation director of the Murdoch Applied Nanotechnology Research Group, MANRG, and also designed the WA State NanoCarbon Manufacturing facility for the WA Nanochemistry Research Institute.

Professor Simon Mallal

HIV, AIDS, Clinical Immunology, Infectious Diseases, vaccine design

Professor Simon Mallal is Director of the Institute for Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Murdoch University and a Clinical Immunologist and Immunopathologist at Royal Perth Hospital.

He has had a longstanding research interest in the Major Histocompatibility Complex and genetic influences on clinical outcomes in HIV and other diseases.More recently he has focussed on viral adaptation to HLA-restricted immune responses and the implications of this for HIV vaccine immunogen design.

His research group also study the genetics and pathogenesis of hypersensitivity to abacavir and nevirapine and the long-term complications of anti-retroviral therapy with a particular focus on mitochondrial toxicity and subcutaneous fat wasting.

Professor Cassandra Berry

Viral disease and innate immunity

Professor Berry’s primary area of research is to investigate vaccines and other immunotherapies for clinical disease such as the influenza virus, cytomegalovirus and other herpes viruses. She has pioneered exploration of the mechanisms of inflammatory responses to virus infection.

Her other research interests include autoimmunity following virus infection, immunotherapy for chronic inflammatory disease and innovative biomarker surveillance for vaccinated animals. The biomarker has direct application for control of avian influenza virus (bird flu).

Professor Berry is the Director of the Integrated Health Research Institute of Western Australia at Murdoch University. The major objectives for the Institute are to enhance research activities and outcomes of health and wellbeing for improved quality of life for all Australians and people around the world.

Dr Mandy O’Hara

Anatomic and veterinary pathology diagnosis and trials

Professor Andrew Thompson

Parasitology; biology, taxonomy and lifecycles of parasite zoonoses

Professor Andrew Thompson has led research to develop drugs against neglected diseases in Africa and South America such as sleeping sickness and Chagas disease.

He has worked on new World Health Organisation research to estimate the global burden of foodborne disease, and made major contributions to the understanding of the biology, taxonomy and lifecycles of Echinococcus, Giardia, Cryptosporidium and other parasite zoonoses.

A recent past president of the Australian Society for Parasitology, Professor Thompson heads Murdoch’s internationally renowned parasitology section in the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences.