CELLULAR INTERACTIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEVELOPMENT, MAINTENANCE, AND STRENGTH OF THE SKELETON
With
Prof Natalie A Sims, PhD.
Deputy Director, St. Vincent’s Institute,
Melbourne, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia | May 2025
Professor Sims directs the Bone Cell Biology and Disease Unit at St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research and is a Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University.
She leads a team who studies the cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton. She completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide, followed by postdoctoral work at the Garvan Institute in Sydney then at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Connecticut, where she studied the role of the estrogen receptor in regulating bone structure.
She returned to Australia in 2001 to set up a laboratory at St. Vincent’s Hospital and SVI. Her laboratory studies the cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton, including the IL-6 family of cytokines, using genetically altered mouse models, in vitro system and human specimens. She has published more than 140 peer reviewed original research articles, 48 peer reviewed review articles and commentaries, and 20 published chapters; H index of 64 (Scopus); more than 13,500 career citations.
Her work has been recognised by awards from her colleagues internationally, including the International Bone and Mineral Society Herbert A Fleisch Award (2013) and the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) Fuller Albright Award (2010) and Paula Stern Award (2020).
She is a Deputy Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. She has served as President of the Australia and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society and is currently Executive Secretary of the International Federation of Musculoskeletal Research Societies.
Source: Supplied
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Dr Meghan McIlwain
DR MEGHAN MCILWAIN, CLINICAL RESEARCH MANAGER
PRESIDENT, THE NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION OF CLINICAL RESEARCH,
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND -
Neonatal respiratory trials in sick & preterm newborn infants
Prof Brett J. Manley leads and collaborates on large national and international randomised clinical trials in neonatology. He previously collaborated on 4 randomised trials of nasal high-flow as non-invasive respiratory support for preterm and term infants, all of which were published in N Engl J Med. Recently he led the PLUSS trial of intratracheal budesonide for extremely preterm infants, that recruited in 21 NICUs across 4 countries, the results of which were published in JAMA. PLUSS was awarded the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Trial of the Year in 2025. Another passion of his is mentoring and supervising early career researchers to undertake their own clinical trials.
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Lymphoma, Myeloma and Genomics
Professor Dipti Talaulikar is a clinical and laboratory haematologist with expertise in genomics, working at Canberra Health Services, and Professor at ANU. She has a clinical and research interest in lymphoma, myeloma and genomics, and has authored close to 100 peer reviewed papers, including several clinical guidelines that have had a significant impact on clinical practice.
