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Division Heads

 

Professor Philip Beart (Neurodegeneration)

PhD, ANU, DSc Melbourne

Professor Beart Philip Beart has been a NH&MRC Research Fellow for 30 yrs and is currently Professorial Fellow in the Florey Neuroscience Institutes and Adjunct Professor in Pharmacology, University of Melbourne. He worked at the Cambridge and Harvard Universities, before holding positions at the Austin Hospital and Monash University.

Professor Graeme Jackson (Epilepsy)

BSc (Hons) MBBS FRACP MD

Prof Graeme Jackson is the founding Director of the Brain Research Institute and a Neurologist at the Austin Hospital. He receives international recognition for his work in new MRI technologies, particularly in the field of epilepsy. He is a Professorial Fellow of the Department of Medicine and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Radiology, University of Melbourne; an Honorary Neurologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and a Board member of Neurosciences Victoria. Professor Jackson recently won a highly prestigious 2008 NHMRC Excellence Award.

A/Professor Steven Petrou (Epilepsy)

BSci (Hons) PhD

Associate Professor Petrou is Deputy Director and Head of the Florey Neuroscience Institutes’ Division of Epilepsy, and heads the Laboratory of Ion Channels and Human Disease, a multidisciplinary team of researchers with a focus on revealing fundamental mechanisms of disease genesis in the central nervous system. Current major areas of investigation centre on the development and characterisation of genetically engineered mice models for the study of human familial epilepsy. He works closely with industry and has several patents for his discoveries. In addition to his many roles within the Florey Neuroscience Institutes and the University of Melbourne, he serves on the editorial board of the Journal Neurobiology of Disease and the Investigators Workshop Committee for the American Epilepsy Society.

Professor Alan Connelly (Imaging)

PhD

Until August 2005, Alan Connelly was a Professor of Biophysics at University College London, with a particular interest in the development of magnetic resonance techniques and their application to significant clinical and neuroscientific problems. He then relocated with his research group to FNI, where he has been instrumental in setting up new MR facilities at the Austin Campus. His work has covered a range of MR methods, with current focus primarily on diffusion and perfusion MRI and their application to the investigation of epilepsy, stroke, and cognitive function. Professor Connelly has published widely in magnetic resonance, general scientific, and neuroscientific journals.

Professor Andrew Lawrence (Behavioural Neuroscience)

BSc (Hons) PhD (Loughborough)

Professor Lawrence is a Professorial Research Fellow within the Behavioural Neuroscience division at FNI, and head of the Addiction Neuroscience laboratory. His primary research interest is in the development of robust animal models of drug-seeking, drug-taking and drug-induced neural adaptation. In addition, his group uses these models to define new potential therapeutic targets for drug and alcohol abuse disorders. He has published over 150 original articles and reviews. Andrew Lawrence is currently Senior Editor of The British Journal of Pharmacology and also sits on the editorial boards of Neurochemical Research & Addiction Biology. In 2009, Professor Lawrence was awarded the Australian Neuroscience Society medallion for services to the society. In his spare time, Andrew is a keen cyclist and a surf life guard.

Dr Amy Brodtmann (Behavioural Neuroscience)

MBBS FRACP PhD

Dr Brodtmann is a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow, as well as holding joint appointments as a neurologist at Austin Health and Box Hill Hospital.

Her research focuses on novel uses of fMRI in patients with cerebrovascular disease, correlating signal changes with perfusion data and clinical parameters. Other interests are in the neural basis of neglect, and the diagnosis of focal onset dementias.

She is a current recipient of a NHMRC Training Research Fellowship, and was recently appointed as the National Brain School Co-ordinator, overseeing post-graduate education for neurology trainees.

Professor Trevor Kilpatrick (Multiple Sclerosis)

MBBS PhD FRACP

Trevor Kilpatrick leads the MS Division at FNI and is a neurologist and Head of the MS Unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, in addition to being Director of the Centre for Neuroscience at The University of Melbourne. His research interests include the neurobiology of multiple sclerosis, neural precursor cell biology and the study of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to MS as well as the translation of basic research discoveries to the clinic.

Professor Kilpatrick has been the recipient of the Sunderland Award, AMRAD Postdoctoral Award and the inaugural Leonard Cox Award. More recently, Professor Kilpatrick and his Group were awarded the Australian Museum’s Jamie Callachor Eureka Prize for Medical Research (2008) in recognition of their extraordinary contribution to medical research into multiple sclerosis.

Professor Seong-Seng Tan (Brain Development & Regeneration)

BDS (Mal) MDS (Adel)  DPhil (Oxon) FRACDS

Professor Tan is NH&MRC Senior Principal Research Fellow, and Adjunct Professor at The University of Melbourne Centre for Neuroscience, and University of Queensland Brain Institute.  He is interested in understanding how the brain is assembled during development, and what mechanisms protect brain cells from death following brain injury such as trauma and stroke.  Professor Tan has published over 100 papers and was awarded the Amgen Australia Medical Research Award (1997).  He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Neuroscience (USA) and Experimental Neurology.  Professor Tan is a keen swimmer and a member of the Brighton Iceburgers.

Professor Robin McAllen (Systems Neurophysiology)

BSc PhD MB ChB

Professor Robin McAllen is a NHMRC Principal Research Fellow. He trained in Physiology in London and Birmingham and in Medicine at Birmingham (UK) before moving to the Florey in 1988. He is a neurophysiologist with an interest in the central nervous regulation of cardiovascular and autonomic functions, and has published extensively of this topic. More recently he has collaborated with FNI colleagues in neuroimaging experiments that aim to translate lessons learned from animal studies to the human brain. He currently serves on the   editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology, is a section editor for Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, and is a member of the Faculty of 1000.

Professor Richard Macdonell (Systems Neurophysiology)

MD FRACP FAFRM (RACP)

Professor Richard Macdonell is Director of Neurology at Austin Health and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at FNI. He trained in Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology at Austin Health, Massachusetts General and the London Hospitals and has been in charge of the Neurophysiology and Neuroimmunology services at Austin Health since 1991. His research interests include multiple sclerosis, peripheral nerve and muscle disorders and using transcranial magnetic stimulation to study the pathophysiology of epilepsy.

A/Professor Ross Bathgate (Neuropeptides)

BSc (Hons) PhD

Associate Professor Ross Bathgate is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and an Honorary Principle Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Melbourne. His work focuses on the relaxin family of peptides and their G-protein coupled receptors. He has published over 165 papers including numerous invited reviews on relaxin peptides and their receptors, with a total of over 2500 career citations. His work has attracted substantial funding from the NHMRC and other Australian funding bodies as well as pharmaceutical companies.

A/Professor David W Howells (Stroke)

PhD

Associate Professor Howells is co-division head of the Stroke division. He began his career investigating the biochemical and genetic basis of dopamine and serotonin deficits in children. He went on to describe a new population of dopaminergic neurons, demonstrated that BDNF depletion can cause parkinsonism and that Parkinson’s disease patients are deficient in BDNF. His other research interest is in stroke: his studies of neuroprotection in stroke have led to improved modelling of stroke in animals, the development of new methods of imaging, and development of systematic review and analysis as tools for rigorously evaluating basic science literature. The latter have led three leading stroke journals to publish guidelines for Good Laboratory Practice.
 

 

A/Professor Julie Bernhardt (Stroke)

Associate Professor Julie Bernhardt is co-division head of the Stroke division andleads the AVERT Early Intervention Research Program. This includes a multidisciplinary team of researchers committed to the development and testing of new, rehabilitation interventions that can reduce the burden of stroke related disability. AVERT, the largest, international, acute stroke rehabilitation
trial ever conducted, sits at the core of the program. Advancing understanding of how exercise-based interventions alter bone, muscle and brain function after stroke is another aim of the program. Julies’ clinical career has been devoted to working with people with stroke and other neurological diseases. As a strong proponent of evidence based care, another key theme within her program is the synthesis and translation of evidence into practice. Julie sits on the Board of the National Stroke Foundation and on a number of national and international stroke advisory groups.

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“Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.” ~ Marston Bates