Dr Jade Forwood

Full description

Dr Forwood's research interests are medical biochemistry, molecular biology and pharmacology. Projects include sex determination and mutations with SRY that lead to genetic sex reversal in humans, nucleocytoplasmic transport of proteins involved in gene regulation, non-viral gene-therapy, and techniques to characterise protein-protein interactions including x-ray crystallography. He has conducted research on proteins responsible for replicating the Dengue virus genome, proteins involved in gene regulation and their application for gene therapy, neuralisation of stem cells, and crystallographic structure determination of proteins involved in colon cancer, development, macrophage activation, lipid metabolism, and the nucleocytoplasmic transport process. This work has been published in a number of journals including Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Plant Cell, J Biol Chem, Proteins and Biochemistry and a number of book chapters.

Dr Forwood completed a BBiomedSc. (Hons I) at James Cook University and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (Australian National University). He was awarded a University Medal in 1998 and the Frank Fenner Medal in 2002 for most outstanding PhD thesis. Since completing his PhD, he undertook postdoctoral research in industry (Bresagen Ltd., Adelaide University), and under an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship, conducted research at the Department of Structural Studies in Cambridge (UK) for two years, followed by an additional two years at the University of Queensland. In 2007, he joined the School of Biomedical Sciences at Charles Sturt University to coordinate and lecture in Biochemistry. He has secured 18 research grants totalling more than $32 million (c. half as CIA), including grants from highly competitive national and international funding sources.

In 2009 he was awarded an international research grant from the Association Francaise contre les Myopathies (AFM, French Muscular Dystrophy Association), a granting body that funds only a very small number of grants per year outside Europe. In 2011 he was awarded an NHMRC Project Grant for 2012-2014 as sole CI; 2012 was CI on an NHMRC grant ~470K/3 years. He was the recipient of a Travel Award to attend the American Society of Cell Biology Conference in San Francisco; a highly competitive CJ Martin Fellowship (2002-2006); a Centre for Inland Health Research Fellowship (2009); Vice-Chancellors Award for Research Excellence (2012); Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists Young Scientist Award (under 35 years of age) (2012); ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2016); and Travel Award to attend the 13th FAOBMB Congress in Bangkok, Thailand (2012).