Department research
Our internationally-renowned researchers are each members of one or more of the Institute's 7 Discovery Programs: Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Development and Stem Cells, Infection, Immunity, Neuroscience, and Metabolism, Diabetes and Obesity.
Research in the department encompasses six broad themes:
- molecular and cell biology
- signal transduction
- host/pathogen interaction
- structural biology
- immunology
- developmental biology
Our research is highly relevant to major human diseases and pathological processes, including infection, inflammation, diabetes and obesity, developmental and degenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Our researchers consistently publish in highly influential journals, such as Nature, Cell, Science, Immunity, Nature Metabolism, Nature Immunology and Nature Genetics. The Department published >230 studies in 2024, with >75 publications having an Impact Factor of greater than 10. This outstanding achievement places us ahead of, or on par with, the leading independent research institutes in Australia. Importantly, nearly half of these high impact studies have Departmental researchers as first or senior authors, indicating that we are leading a substantial proportion of this outstanding research.
Accordingly, many of our researchers hold prestigious fellowships, including ARC Laureate, Future & DECRA Fellowships, NHMRC Investigator Fellowships, Viertel Fellowships and Snow Fellowships, and/or are fellows of learned academies such as the Australian Academy of Sciences, highlighting the Department’s research excellence and strong mentorship of staff. In 2024, our researchers obtained >30 million dollars of funding from a variety of national and international government, industry and philanthropic funding bodies such as the NHMRC, MRFF, ARC, Biocurate, U.S. Department of Defense, Wellcome Trust and Worldwide Cancer Research.
The Department is heavily invested in continual support of emerging scientific leaders, as highlighted by the Department's Career Development Committee and flagship Career Strategy Panels.
Find out more about each of the Lab Heads and Group Leaders in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Their lab information and websites showcase the incredible research each of them are doing.