I am a biologist interested in understanding blood cell production and function, and how cells communicate with each other.

I have been the director of the institute since 2009. As director, my priorities have included:

• Strengthening the governance framework within which the institute operates.

• Overseeing the $185M renovation and extension of our research facilities.

• Providing young researchers with the opportunity to run their own laboratories.

• Making research less bureaucratic to enable scientists to focus on making discoveries and realise their full potential.

• Expanding the institute’s translational research capacities.

• Improving the representation of women in senior research roles.

• Working with our precinct partners to ensure we maximise our collaborative opportunities in research, education and clinical care.

• Explaining to the community and government what we do with taxpayer and philanthropic funding.

• Ensuring Australian medical research is administered and funded in smart and strategic ways.

Research interest

My laboratory studies the development and function of blood cells. We aim to identify genes and molecular pathways that are important in regulating normal blood cell production and understand the changes that lead to blood cell disorders such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, leukemia and lymphoma. We work with clinicians and industry partners to find better ways of treating these illnesses.

We take a multidisciplinary approach combining cell biology, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics and computational science to understand the blood cell system and its individual lineages. We also develop software that assists biologist in visualising and interacting with large data sets.