Prof Gary Egan

Biography

Gary Egan is the Foundation Director of the Monash Biomedical Imaging (MBI) research facilities and a Distinguished Professor in the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health.

Prof Egan undertook his PhD in experimental particle physics and worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. He was a Senior and Principal Research Fellow at the Howard Florey Institute, University of Melbourne and Associate Director and Professor in the Centre for Neuroscience, University of Melbourne from 2000 until 2010.

Prof Egan is the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function. The Centre's research focuses on the greatest scientific challenge of the 21st Century: to understand the link between brain activity and human behaviour. To achieve this goal the Centre's research program integrates the work of many of Australia's leading brain researchers in the fields of anatomy, physiology, neuroimaging, informatics, neural modelling and neuroengineering. The Centre has been funded by a $20 million grant from the Australian Research Council (2014-21).

He is also lead investigator of the Victorian Biomedical Imaging Capability (Victorian Science Agenda grant, 2010-15) that funded the MRI, PET-CT and animal imaging facilities at Victorian research organisations, led by Monash University. He is the Deputy Director of the Australian National Imaging Facility (National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme, Education Investment Fund and Collaborative Research Infrastructure grants, 2007-16) and node director of the Monash University node of the National Imaging Facility.

Prof Egan leads the development of advanced MRI methods to develop MR biomarkers for use in future clinical drug trials in neurodegenerative diseases. His research focuses on the development of neuroimaging biomarkers to enable identification of progressive neurodegeneration and neural dysfunction in the clinical neurosciences. His research team has also developed novel MRI techniques to quantify axonal and myelin pathology in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and animal models of MS.

He has achieved of a substantive body of published work that has made a significant impact on the neuroimaging and neuroscience fields. He has published over 230 papers in peer reviewed journals: 24 in leading particle physics journals (1990-93) resulting from his PhD and post-doctoral research; 25 papers in medical imaging research related to positron emission tomography (1995-99); and over 180 papers in neuroimaging and neuroscience. As at 29 January 2019, he has a Google h-index of 76 with over 16,400 citations (for current figures see http://scholar.google.com.au/citations).

Gary Egan has the ability to attract high-quality postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows and has supervised 32 postgraduate and post-doctoral students, with five completing in the past five years. He has sustained success in obtaining significant and substantial grants to support his research, as a chief investigator (CI) on 16 peer reviewed funded grants in the past five years ($39 million). Throughout his career he has been awarded a total of 22 NHMRC grants, 17 ARC grants, 2 NIH grants and 41 other grants in competitive grant applications (total received funding $70.3 million).

Affiliations and memberships

• Treasurer, Australasian Neuroscience Society, Australia
• Co-Director, Australian Brain Alliance, Australia
• Governing Board Vice-Chair, International Neuroinformatics Co-ordinating Facility (INCF), Sweden
• Member, International Organisation for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), USA
• Member, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), USA
• Member, Society for Neuroscience, USA
• Member, International Society for Neuroscience (ISN)
• Member, International Neuroinformatics Co-ordinating Facility (INCF) Training Committee
• Member, International Expert Review Panel, Human Brain Project, EU
• Member, NHMRC Research Translation Faculty, Australia
• Member, NHMRC Assigners Academy, Australia
• Member, Rebecca L Cooper Medical Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee, Australia
• Member, Australian Academy of Science Brain Implementation Committee, Australia
• Scientific Advisory Board Member, Herston Imaging Research Facility, Australia
• Chairperson, Imaging and Visualisation Scientific Advisory Committee (IVSAC), Multi-modal Australian Sciences Imaging and Visualisation Environment (MASSIVE) Computational Initiative, Australia
• Member & Ambassador, Club Melbourne, State Government of Victoria, Australia
• Editor in Chief, Journal of Human Brain Mapping, Wiley Publishers, USA
• Member, Editorial Board, International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, Wiley, USA

View Professor Gary Egan's complete profile.