Skip to main content

Research in Progress Meeting

30 September 2020
1.00pm – 2.00pm AEST
Online
This event has ended

 

The St George and Sutherland Clinical School Research in Progress Meetings, are a lunchtime research seminar open to researchers, students, UNSW and St George Hospital staff and any interested members of the public.

Our speakers are from the University of New South Wales, and will speak on the below topics:

Professor Samuel Breit – The TGF-β Family Cytokine GDF15 and its Receptor GFRAL in Health and Disease

Prof Breit is a Clinical Immunologist and Immunopathologist at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, Professor of Medicine at University of NSW and heads the Inflammation and Cytokine Biology Research Program at St Vincent’s Centre of Applied Medical Research. Prof Breit’s group have spearheaded studies of the divergent TGF-β superfamily cytokine MIC-1/GDF15 that his research group first discovered and characterised almost two decades ago. His group identified MIC-1/GDF15 as having a role in appetite regulation and metabolism and Prof Breit’s research is currently largely focussed on this area.

Dr Vicky Tsai – GDF15 and the Gut Microbiome in the Regulation of Metabolism

Dr Tsai is a conjoint senior lecturer in the faculty Medicine at UNSW, she leads a research group within the Cytokine and Inflammation Research Program at St Vincent’s Centre for Applied Medical Research (AMR). Her research focuses on the biology of a divergent TGF-β superfamily cytokine, GDF15. Since joined Prof Sam Breit’s laboratory in 2007, Dr Tsai has elucidated much of the GDF15’s role in central regulation of appetite and obesity resistance.

Dr Emily McGovern - The Impact of GDF15 on the Gut Microbiome

Dr McGovern is a Post-Doctoral research fellow and Bioinformatician at the microbiome research centre (MRC), St George & Sutherland Clinical School, UNSW. Emily has a background in microbial genomics investigating microbial ecosystems in both human and animal research studies. She is currently working across a range of projects at the MRC including a collaboration with Prof Sam Breit and Dr Tsai investigating the effect of GDF15 on the murine microbiome.


The meeting is available online through Microsoft Teams