I am Deputy Director of the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI) and Head of Molecular and Cellular Physiology research group. I undertook a post-doc with Prof. Thomas Jentsch at the ZMNH, Hamburg, Germany and was then awarded an independent research fellowship to move to the Hudson Institute in Melbourne. I was recruited to Flinders University through a BioInnovation SA Research Fellowship in 2006. In 2010, I was awarded both a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Level 1) and an ARC Future Fellowship and then a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) in 2015. My research is focused on understanding how cells send chemical signals to each other and how this is implicated in health and disease. We have published significant work in this area in leading international journals including Nature, PNAS, PLoS Genetics, Molecular Psychiatry, Gastroenterology, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Neuroscience, Diabetes, Nature Communications and Cell Metabolism.

Professor Mark Febbraio is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the NHMRC, and the Head of the Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory within the Drug Discovery Program at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University Australia. He is also the CSO of N-Gene Research Laboratories Inc., a USA based Biotechnology Company and the Founder and CSO of the recently incorporated company Kinomedica. His research is focussed on understanding mechanisms associated with exercise, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer and his aim is to develop novel drugs to treat lifestyle related diseases. He has authored over 260 peer reviewed papers in leading journals, has over 35,000 career citations and an H factor of 105. He has won prizes at international, national and institutional levels including the A K McIntyre Prize for significant contributions to Australian Physiological Science (1999), the ESA/ADS Joint Plenary Lecture (2009), the Sandford Skinner Oration from the University of Melbourne (2011), Eureka Scientific Prize Finalist (2013) and the Kellion Award for the Australian Diabetes Society (2017).

Tony’s general research interest is in understanding cellular signalling networks and tissue crosstalk in human disease. He was educated at The University of Melbourne and completed his PhD with Prof. Bruce E. Kemp, St Vincent’s Institute, Melbourne, before pursuing post-doctoral training with Prof. Nicholas K. Tonks, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. He established an independent laboratory at Monash University in 2000. He is an Editor for FEBS Journal, Molecular & Cellular Biology and Science Advances. Tony holds an appointment at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and heads the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute Metabolism, Diabetes and Obesity Program. He leads a multidisciplinary team focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms contributing to the development of obesity and diabetes and determining how obesity and metabolism affect tumour cells and the immune system to promote the development of cancer.