EMBL Australia Scientific Head Professor Nadia Rosenthal, who is also founding Director of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University, has accepted a newly created position as Scientific Director of The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) in Maine.
Professor Rosenthal was instrumental in Australia being offered Associate Membership of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Australia was the first country outside Europe to join the EMBL, Europe’s preeminent life science research laboratory.
Professor Richard Larkins, Chair of EMBL Australia stated
‘Nadia has been instrumental in establishing and consolidating a range EMBL activities here in Australia. Through her efforts, EMBL Australia now has a comprehensive program of research and support activities that help maximise the benefits of Australia’s associate membership of EMBL i.e. to internationalise our life science research and introduce our best young researchers to new networks and tools for life sciences.
Under her leadership, EMBL Australia has established research groups in Victoria, NSW and South Australia, national Bioinformatics and Systems Biology programs in Queensland and Victoria respectively and a very successful student program.’
Professor Rosenthal sees two major opportunities in her new role at the JAX.
“One is to build the Jackson Laboratory research staff in Bar Harbor, including students and other early-career scientists, and extend collaborations with international research institutions. The other is to expand powerful new approaches developed by JAX researchers that will deliver mouse models as unique as the patients we need to treat, and make them accessible to biomedical researchers everywhere,” Professor Rosenthal said.
Professor Rosenthal is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, an EMBO member, a recipient of the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology and was awarded Doctors Honoris Causa from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and the University of Amsterdam. She also holds a Chair in Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London. She has served on numerous international grant review committees and advisory panels and has coordinated several major EU consortia on mouse genetics and disease models. She is a Founding Editor of Disease Models and Mechanisms and Editor-in-Chief of Differentiation.
Professor Rosenthal will join the Jackson Laboratory in May and take up Directorship in Bar Harbor by the end of the year, retaining an honorary post at Monash. The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, non-profit biomedical research institution employs 1600 staff. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.
Professor Rosenthal will remain as Scientific Head of EMBL Australia to December 2015.
About EMBL Australia
In 2008 Australia became an associate member of EMBL, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Europe’s flagship for the life sciences.
Membership gives Australia the opportunity to internationalise our life science research: introducing our best young researchers to new networks and tools for life sciences. Membership enables Australia to create highly competitive research teams networked across the nation and with Europe.
EMBL Australia was created to maximise the benefits of Australia’s associate membership of EMBL and does so via research projects, infrastructure and training programs across Australia.
EMBL Australia is developing up to 20 research teams and bases of expertise in new tools including bioinformatics and systems biology.