"Sequencing the transcriptome in toto"

Dr Sean Grimmond pioneered microarray technology at the Medical Research Council Genetics Unit (Harwell, UK) before returning to Australia in 2000 under the CJ Martin Career Development Award. He joined the Institute for Molecular Bioscience in 2004 as head of IMB’s microarray facility,. Sean was named Eppendorf Young Australian Scientist 2004, and in 2007 took up an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board of Differentiation, is active in the FANTOM and US National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Anatomy networks, and is President of the Australasian Microarray and Associated Technologies Association (AMATA). During 2006 Sean was scientific lead on a new strategic partnership with Applied Biosystems Inc. that has introduced the ABI next-generation SOLiD sequencing platform to Australia.

Eugene Koonin

"Evolutionary genomics in the age of 10,000 genomes "

Eugene is Senior Investigator for the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) within the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)

His principal research interests concern understanding the evolution of life using existing and new methods of computational biology to perform research in three main directions.
1. Empirical comparative and evolutionary genomics - comparison of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes with the aim of predicting gene functions, constructing evolutionary scenarios for particular gene families and functional categories, and deciphering general evolutionary trends. One of the evolutionary phenomena we are particularly interested in is horizontal gene transfer between diverse organisms. One of the products of this research direction is the database of Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COGs).
2. Exploitation of genome comparisons, particularly, those between relatively close genomes, for addressing fundamanetal issue of evolutionary biology such as the nature of adaptation and selection in different categories of genes.
3. Classification and evolutionary analysis of protein domains and domain architectures. An important dimension in this type of research is discovery of "new" domains that are shared by many diverse proteins but have not been defined previously.

Dr. Li's research interests include bioinformatics, systems biology and computational biology. Currently, he is focusing on proteomics informatics research. Dr. Li has published more than 80 journal papers. His research results have been cited by more than 1000 researchers worldwide.

"Misunderstanding the mammalian genome"

Professor Mattick was responsible for the development of the IMB with Professor Peter Andrews. In 1988 he was appointed the Foundation Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Centre for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Queensland.

The Centre was subsequently designated a Special Research Centre of the Australian Research Council (1991-1999) and was re-named the CMCB, with its primary focus being the molecular genetics of mammals and their diseases, including genome mapping, gene regulation, developmental biology and cell biology.

He was responsible for the development of one of the first recombinant DNA-based vaccines, and was the recipient of the 1989 Pharmacia-LKB Biotechnology Medal from the Australian Biochemical Society, and the inaugural (2000) Eppendorf Achievement Award from the Lorne Genome Conference. His current research interest is in the role of non-coding RNAs in the evolution and development of complex organisms. He has published over 100 scientific papers.

Professor Mattick is also, among other things, a member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee and the Research Committee of the NHMRC. He is a foundation member of the recently established International Molecular Biology Network (Asia-Pacific), was a foundation member of the Board of ANGIS (the Australian National Genome Information Service) from 1991-2000 and is currently a member of the Board of the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility. He is a member of the Queensland Biotechnology Advisory Council and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several institutes nationally and internationally. He was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia in June 2001.

"Constructing cross-tissue networks to elucidate disease circuits"

Executive Scientific Director, Genetics, Rosetta Inpharmatics/Merck Research Labs, Seattle, WA
Affiliate Associate Professor, Departments of Biostatistics and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Dr. Schadt joined Rosetta as Informatics Analysis Research Leader in November 1999. He founded Rosetta’s Research Genetics department, whose primary mission is elucidating common human diseases using novel integrative genomics approaches based on genetic and molecular profiling data, and has helped define a new field in statistical genetics – the genetics of gene expression. Prior to joining Rosetta, Dr. Schadt was a Senior Research Scientist at Roche Bioscience. He received his B.A. in applied mathematics and computer science from California Polytechnic State University, his M.A. in pure mathematics from UCLA, and his Ph.D. in bio-mathematics from UCLA.

In 2006, Dr. Schadt was appointed Affiliate Associate Professor, Departments of Biostatistics and Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA