EMBL Australia

Professor Ewan Birney is a Deputy Director General of EMBL and Director of EMBL-EBI. Ewan completed his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute with Richard Durbin. In 2000, he became Head of Nucleotide data at EMBL-EBI and in 2012 he took on the role of Associate Director at the institute. He became Director of EMBL-EBI in 2015 and Deputy Director General of EMBL in 2020.

Professor Michael Parker is Director of the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, University of Melbourne and Head of Structural Biology, St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research. He is also an NHMRC Investigator Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. Michael completed a Bachelor Science degree with a major in chemistry at ANU followed by a D. Phil. in protein crystallography from Oxford University, and then held a position as staff scientist at EMBL in Heidelberg. Michael returned to Australia to re-establish a protein crystallography laboratory at St. Vincent’s in 1991. He has published over 350 papers and his work has been recognised with numerous awards including the 2011 Lemberg Medal of the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the 2011 Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research, and the 2012 Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists Award for Research Excellence. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2010 and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015. He has been closely associated with drug discovery and development for nearly 20 years. He was Head of Biota’s Structural Biology Lab (2000-2014) and Head of the structural biology node of the CRC for Cancer Therapeutics (2007-2014).

Merran is the inaugural Chief Executive of Australia’s Population Health Research Network and chairs the PHRN Participant Council. She is a past Director of the International Population Data Linkage Network (2019-2020) and current member of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre Board.

Merran has an extensive background in science, health, and economics with strengths in strategic leadership and many years’ experience in Australia’s health and research infrastructure systems.  She is well versed in data management and oversaw the WA Department of Health’s Health Information Centre for more than 10 years. While with the Department, she established data linkage as a core service and served on Australia’s peak national health information committees.