Cynthia Whitchurch

Brief description

I obtained my PhD from the Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology (CMCB) at the University of Queensland in 1994, and from 1995-2001 was a postdoctoral scientist and Assistant Group leader (1996-2001) to Prof John Mattick at the CMCB and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB). From 2001-2004 I obtained postdoctoral experience at the University of California San Francisco. I returned to Australia in 2004 to take up a NHMRC R Douglas Wright Career Development Award (2004-2008) and established an independent research group in the Department of Microbiology at Monash University. In Jan 2008 I moved to the Institute for the Biotechnology of Infectious Diseases (IBID) at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) where I am a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow (2009-2013) and lead an independent research group with an extensive research programme in bacterial pathogenesis, biofilm development and other collective behaviors. Since joining UTS I have also led the establishment the Microbial Imaging Facility of which I am Director. My contributions to my research fields are highlighted by the fact that many of my published papers have high numbers of citations and continue to be cited. The most significant of these is the article published in 2002 in Science. At the time of publication this was ranked number 1 in "All of Biology" by the Faculty of 1000 and is ranked in the top category as "Exceptional". This paper has promoted a paradigm shift in our understanding of the architecture of bacterial biofilms and demonstrated a novel role for DNA in biology.