Please welcome two recent outstanding research appointments, Professor Melinda (Lindy) Fitzgerald and Associate Professor Julian Heng. Lindy and Julian will be physically located at the Sarich Neuroscience Research Institute, but are fully affiliated with the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI).
Lindy and Julian add significant capacity to the Neurological research pillar within CHIRI and our ViNC themes. They are keen to engage with the CHIRI research community through collaborative research, student supervision, involvement in research symposia and provision of guest lectures. They will both present their research through the CHIRI seminar series in the near future, but a short biography describing their research can be found by selecting ‘read more’ below. CHIRI will be providing full service assistance to Lindy and Julian with respect to laboratory management and research activities.
Julian Heng attained his Bachelor’s of Science from UWA (1993-1996) followed by a PhD in developmental neuroscience at the University of Melbourne (1998-2002), working at the Howard Florey Institute. He then trained as a CJ Martin Fellow and then as an MRC Career Development Fellow at the National Institute for Medical Research (UK) from 2004 to 2008. In 2010, Julian was appointed Group Leader at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (Clayton, Australia) and received a Career Development Award (Level 1, NH&MRC). He relocated his research to the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (Perth, Western Australia) to establish the Brain Growth and Disease Laboratory. In March 2017, Julian will take up a position as Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, at the Curtin Neuroscience Laboratories, located within the new Sarich Neuroscience Institute.
Julian investigates the genetic basis for brain development and neurological disease. In the last five years, he has discovered 6 novel causative genes for brain disorders in children. To translate his gene discovery work, he collaborates with PathWest (a molecular diagnostics facility in Perth, WA) to implement a novel gene chip assay which screens for causative mutations in children diagnosed with a brain disorder. His research has been cited more than 1560 times (>960 times since 2012) (Source: Google Scholar)
Melinda (Lindy) Fitzgerald has recently been appointed Professor of Neurotrauma, a joint appointment with the Perron Institute and the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, located at the new Sarich Neuroscience Research Institute.
Prof Fitzgerald’s research is focused around understanding and preventing the loss of function that occurs following neurotrauma. She uses innovative analytical techniques to demonstrate changes to key biochemical, cellular and structural components of nerves following injury, with a particular focus on excitotoxicity, oxidative stress and myelin biology. She is assessing treatment strategies including nanotechnologies and combinatorial pharmacotherapeutics: her drive to translate her research findings to the clinic is evidenced by her current collaborative clinical trial assessing biomarkers and MRI for prediction of post-concussion syndrome.
A/Prof Fitzgerald has published 67 papers (40 in the last 5 years), of which she is first author on 16 and last author on 27. Currently Held Grants/Projects total $2 million; she is CIA for all of these; total funding awarded for her career is $6.5 million, $3.9 million as CIA. She is a Handling Editor for the Journal of Neurochemistry, the Australian representative for the Asia Pacific Regional Committee for IBRO, serves on the international scientific committees for BIOMATSEN2016 and ICNT2016 and is an Editorial Board Member for Neural Regeneration Research, Frontiers Journals and an Associate editor for PeerJ. In the past 5 years A/Prof Fitzgerald has supervised 20 Honours students or equivalent, 10 PhD students (5 completions), 6 post-doctoral researchers, gives regular guest lectures and regularly marks PhD theses. A/Prof Fitzgerald reviews for numerous scientific journals including EJN, IOVS, Neurochem. Int., international funding bodies including fight for Sight UK, Wisconsin University small grants program, MS Australia and the Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia Research Foundation and serves on NHMRC and MS Australia Grant Review Panels. A/Prof Fitzgerald’s commitment to discipline is evidenced by her roles as Chairperson and Convener of the annual Symposium of Western Australian Neuroscience, and the UWA neuroscience seminar series. She is Co-Chair of her departmental Research Committee, and a member of the UWA Faculty of Science Planning Task Force addressing Grantsmanship, Mentoring and Expectations. A/Prof Fitzgerald has instituted a UWA Faculty of Science gender equity group and coordinates the UWA Faculty of Science mentoring program for PhD students and early career researchers.
