The Scientific Advisory Committee

The purpose of this committee is advising the Director on all scientific issues relevant to the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute. In particular, it assists the Director with preparing and implementing the scientific programme of the institute.

The Committee works together with the Director and, when necessary, seeks the counsel of other experts in the field.

Scientific Advisory Committee members

Professor Dame Kay Davies
Professor Tony Green
Dr Anne Ephrussi
Professor Gordon Fishell

Professor Dame Kay Davies

Professor Davies has conducted extensive research into a common genetic muscular disease called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). In the 1980s Professor Davies developed a test which allowed for the screening of foetuses whose mothers have a high risk of carrying DMD.  DMD occurs when the dystrophin protein fails to express in muscle cells due to a mutation in the gene which codes for the protein.  In 1989 Professor Davies discovered that the utrophin protein has similar properties to dystrophin and has since shown in mouse models that upregulation of the former protein in muscle cells can compensate for the absence of the latter.

Professor Davies also has considerable experience of biotechnology companies as a conduit for translating the results of experimental science into new therapeutics and diagnostics.  She co-founded one biotechnology company (Summit plc, formerly VASTox plc) and is a director of one other company.  She is a member of the Technology Transfer Challenge Committee at the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Davies is a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003, and was made a Dame of the British Empire  (DBE) for services to science in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Professor Davies is a Wellcome Trust governor and an Executive Editor of the journal Human Molecular Genetics and an Honorary Fellow, Somerville College, University of Oxford.

Dr Anne Ephrussi

EMBL

Anne Ephrussi serves as Senior Scientist of European Molecular Biology Laboratory and has been its Head of Unit-Developmental Biology Unit since 2007. Dr. Ephrussi has been a Group Leader at EMBL since 1992 and Coordinator of EICAT since 2005.  Dr. Ephrussi served as Dean of Graduate Studies from 2005 to 2008. Dr. Ephrussi received PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA in 1985 and Postdoctoral work at Harvard University and the Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Professor Gordon Fishell

PROFESSOR OF NEUROBIOLOGY AT HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL AND THE STANLEY CENTER AT THE BROAD

Education and Training: 

  • 1984: Diploma (B.Sc.) in Physiology & Biophysics, University of Toronto
  • 1989: Ph.D. in Neurobiology, University of Toronto-Neurobiology Research Group

Postdoctoral Training:

  • 1990-1992: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Pathology, Laboratory of Mary E. Hatten at Columbia University

Professor Tony Green

CAMBRIDGE INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH, CAMBRIDGE BIOMEDICAL CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK

Biography:

Tony Green is Director of the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Head of the University of Cambridge Department of Haematology and Professor of Haemato-oncology at the University of Cambridge.   He trained in medicine at the University of Cambridge and University College Hospital London, subsequently completing his haematology training at the Royal Free Hospital and the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.  He gained his PhD in molecular biology at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London and subsequently spent a post-doctoral period at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne as a Hamilton-Fairley Travelling Fellow.

Professional History:

Following his move to Cambridge in 1991 as a Welcome Trust Senior Fellow, he was elected Professor of Haemato-oncology in 1999 and was appointed as Head of Department in 2000.  His laboratory research has focused on the control of normal blood stem cell behaviour and the processes by which such cells are subverted to cause haematological malignancies.

Clinical Research:

He established and directed the specialist myeloproliferative disorder clinic at Addenbrooke’s Hospital (1991-2016), co-founded in 1995 a national cooperative group of UK MPN clinicians and has been Chief Investigator for the PT-1 suite of international clinical trials in essential thrombocythaemia.

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