WEHI Wednesday Seminar hosted by Professor Ian Wicks
 

Dr Jessica Day

Research Officer – Wicks Laboratory, Inflammation division – Infection, Inflammation & Immunity Theme, WEHI
 

Muscle and myositis – a new research frontier at WEHI

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIWednesday

Including Q&A session
 

Skeletal muscle makes up 40% of body mass and is essential for vital functions including voluntary movement, breathing and swallowing. Despite its critical importance, muscle disorders are significantly under-researched. To address this gap, we have established a new program of translational research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the Royal Melbourne Hospital dedicated to understanding inflammatory muscle diseases, (collectively known as ‘myositis’). Using well-annotated clinical specimens, advanced technologies and experimental models, we seek to understand these highly disabling diseases. Beyond myositis, our exploration of muscle involvement in other inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, demonstrates how previously unrecognised muscle pathology may contribute to disability in systemic inflammatory diseases.

Dr Jessica Day is a rheumatologist and clinician scientist with clinical and academic expertise in myositis. She completed her PhD as an NHMRC-funded scholar on immune-mediated necrotising myopathy at the University of South Australia in 2019. Her PhD identified high rates of permanent disability in necrotising myopathy despite immunotherapy, owing to irreversible fibrofatty replacement of muscle. She has undertaken research placements at myositis centres of excellence including the Karolinska Institute, Salford Royal NHS and the Royal Adelaide Hospital. As the John T Reid Centenary Fellow at WEHI, she is establishing the first translational myositis research program on the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct, which comprises clinical cohort studies, a myositis biobank and laboratory-based discovery projects. Her clinical work in the systemic autoimmune diseases clinic at RMH has been supported by WEHI’s Attracting and Retaining Clinician Scientists program.

All welcome!