The Researchers

Professor Grant Morahan

Professor Grant Morahan is a graduate of La Trobe and Melbourne Universities, and holds a doctorate in immunogenetics from the University of Melbourne. He worked as a Fogarty International Fellow at the prestigious Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in California. Taking up a position at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, he led a research team working on the genetics of complex diseases and researching immunological tolerance.

His research has included genetics of type 1 diabetes in humans and in animal models; genetics of asthma, obesity, demyelinating diseases, cardiovascular disease and malaria; characterization of mechanisms of immune tolerance; and production of monoclonal antibodies. To date, his work has resulted in the publication of over 100 scientific papers, including many in the world's leading scientific journals.

Dr Louise Winteringham

Dr Louise Winteringham came to Western Australia in 1990. She worked and studied in the Department of Clinical Immunology at Royal Perth Hospital completing her MSc in 1994. In 1998 she was awarded the Richard Walter Gibbon Fellowship from the Faculty of Medicine to undertake her PhD with Professor Klinken investigating the role of Myeloid Leukemia Factor 1 (Mlf1) in normal haemopoiesis and in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Louise is currently a senior researcher in the Laboratory for Cancer Medicine. Her research focuses on investigating pathways involved in haemopoietic cell development and lineage commitment and identifying molecules that contribute to the initiation and progression of leukaemia. Mlf1 is up regulated in a significant number of leukemias where it is associated with a poor prognosis. With her collaborators at WEHI Louise has developed mouse models of Mlf1 over expression which together with Mlf1 knock out mice will provide models for the identification and functional analysis of key molecules involved in blood cell development and leukaemia.