An online scientific seminar series focused on motor neurone disease (MND) Research. Hear from national experts and emerging leaders in MND research including the latest clinical trials, drug developments, pre-clinical models, discovery research and collaborative platforms. Learn, connect and share with the Australian MND research community.
For enquiries related to the seminar series, please contact: Dr Sarah Bennett
Australia’s national research infrastructure program provides a wealth of resources and expertise to support MND research including tools for the discovery of disease targets, mechanisms and therapeutic development. Phenomics Australia bioengineers, characterises and curates (biobanks) pre-clinical models of disease to enable advances in genome-based, Precision Medicine, supported by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program. Join us to learn what’s available and how to access these resources. Also, hear about a proposal to develop a national stem cell resource and data infrastructure for MND that integrates stem cell lines, clinical data, and multi-omic datasets. The goal is to create a resource that links patient-derived iPS cell models with detailed patient clinical histories and molecular data, enabling better disease modelling, stratification of patients, and ultimately more effective translational research and clinical trials.
Professor Michael Dobbie has worked to establish and direct Phenomics Australia since its foundation in 2007, serving as CEO since 2013. Prior to this, Michael was awarded BAppSc and MSc degrees specialising in Biochemistry and Immunology from UTS and University of Sydney, a PhD in Neurochemistry from the University of London, and postdoctoral fellowships at King’s College, London and Oxford University (Cancer Research UK Translational Research Fellow). Together, he spent over 20 years researching a range of fields including genetics, cancer, neuroscience, vascular biology, metabolism, developmental biology, and malaria.
Shuyan Ngo
A/Prof Ngo is a Group Leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (UQ) and School of Biological Sciences, Director of the UQ Centre for MND Research, and an Affiliate/Adjunct Academic at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital (RBWH) and Murdoch University. She received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2009, after which, she transitioned to the field of MND. A/Prof Ngo started her independent research group at UQ in 2015 and has built a translational research program that integrates studies in people living with MND with studies in human-derived cell models (stem cell-derived neurons and organoids, human muscle cells) and mouse models of MND to define the mechanisms that drive MND and to identify therapeutic strategies for the disease.