Dr Jade Murray, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University
VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
Bench Side Story continues with a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, at Monash University in Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA.
Dr. Jade M. Murray completed a PhD programme at the Monash University Sleep and Circadian Medicine Laboratory in 2018. Dr. Murray’s broad research interests include studying the effects of circadian misalignment on overall health in both healthy and sleep disordered populations and developing simplified methods for determining the timing of circadian phase. An important innovation in her work has been tracking light-dark exposure data over time to build predictive models of circadian timing for development of personalised delivery systems for sleep-wake interventions to improve health and lifestyle outcomes.
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Next Generation Condom Contraception, Dr Simon Cook
Dr. Simon Cook, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Operations at Eudaemon Technologies, has had a diverse and impactful career journey. Beginning with a background in biotechnology from the University of Wollongong, his focus on bacterial pathogenesis during his PhD led him to study Group A Strep and the streptokinase protein.
Subsequently, Dr. Cook ventured into a unique project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he became involved in the development of a next-generation condom to address existing issues such as feel, odour, and taste.
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DNA repair on the Fanconi anaemia pathway
Associate Professor Wayne Crismani is an internationally recognised expert in DNA repair, with a particular focus on Fanconi anaemia (FA)—a cancer-predisposition and bone marrow failure syndrome marked by extreme sensitivity to DNA damage. Based at St Vincent’s Institute in Melbourne, he leads a research program dedicated to understanding the genetic, cellular, and reproductive consequences of FA. He is currently supported by a Victorian Cancer Agency Mid-Career Fellowship and funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
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Stem cells used for age-related macular degeneration
Dr. Jenna Hall is a passionate and accomplished biologist with expertise in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) culture, disease modelling, and high-throughput automated systems. She recently earned her PhD from the University of Melbourne, where her research focused on using iPSC-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells to study age-related macular degeneration. Dr Hall’s technical skillset spans manual and automated cell reprogramming and differentiation, quantitative microscopy-based phenotyping, and large scale -omics analysis.
