Flinders University

SA Australia

I am a registered physiotherapist with 20 years clinical experience, including 10 years as a Titled Member of Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Australia. Since completing my PhD in 2011 at the University of Adelaide, I have worked in Anatomy and Histology at Flinders University with Ian Gibbins and Rainer Haberberger. My research focuses primary afferent neurons and their role in pain and inflammation, especially in the musculoskeletal system and the female reproductive tract.

Institute for Molecular Bioscience

QLD Australia

Dr. Carter received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne (Australia) in the Department of Physiology. His research involved the use of light-gated ion channels to dissect how peripheral sensory input is first integration into the brainstem. He then completed post-doctoral research at Queensland Brain Institute, where he studied the synaptic connections of the hippocampus in an animal model of vitamin D deficiency. As a research officer under A/Prof Irina Vetter in the Centre of Pain Research, located at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Dr Carter is searching for new treatment options for pain, specifically, new molecular targets for the rational design of therapeutics.

University Of New South Wales

NSW Australia

I completed a Bachelors of Medical Science (Hons) from UNSW in 2014. I am currently completing my PhD (physiology)  from UNSW where I am examining axonal degeneration in animal models of painful peripheral neuropathies using nerve excitability techniques. I am also concurrently studying Medicine at University of Sydney, where I am currently in my 2nd year.

My research interests include peripheral neuropathy, neuropathic pain and clinical neurophysiology.

University of Sydney

NSW Australia

Dr Muralidharan completed his PhD from the laboratory of Professor Maree T. Smith at The University of Queensland (UQ; Australia) in 2013. Subsequently, he then undertook his first postdoctoral tenure at the Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development (CIPDD; UQ) funded by a Large ARC Linkage Grant in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim. In 2015, he was awarded the Ronald Melzack Fellowship in Chronic Pain to pursue his second postdoctoral tenure in the Pain Genetics laboratory of Professor Jeffrey S. Mogil at McGill University (Canada). He is now a senior research fellow in Dr. John and Anne Chong Functional Genomics laboratory of A/Professor Greg Neely at University of Sydney. Currently, his research work focuses on molecular dissection of the interplay between chronic pain and ageing.

James Cook University

QLD Australia

Prof Alan Nimmo is currently Professor of Medical Science in the College of Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University. He is originally from Edinburgh, and graduated from Edinburgh University with Honours in Pharmacology. His Honours project involved demonstrating the presence of substance P in the human brain. Much of his research over the intervening years has focused on the role substance P, and other neuropeptides play in inflammation. This has included research into asthma (Hammersmith Hospital, University of London) and urogenital disorders (School of Medicine, University of Leeds). Whilst at the University of Leeds, Alan completed his PhD. In 1992, Alan moved to Australia to take up an academic position at JCU. He remained at JCU for 13 years, before accepting a position as A/Prof in Pathology at the University of Adelaide. In 2008, Alan returned to JCU to take up the position of Prof of Medical Science.

Alan has acted as a consultant for a number of pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, on their programs examining inflammatory neuropeptides as novel therapeutic targets. Whilst at JCU, Alan began a productive research collaboration with Prof Robert Vink. Bob had a long-standing interest in traumatic brain injury (TBI), and together they worked on developing a novel therapy that targeted the inflammatory response and cerebral oedema associated with TBI. This led to a co-development program with Hoffmann-La Roche, and the establishment of a spin-off company to commercialise their novel TBI therapy. That treatment is currently in Phase 2 human clinical trials. More recently, Alan has developed an interest in the role inflammatory processes may play in the invasive and metastatic progression of cancer, and has developed a therapy that inhibits the growth of secondary tumours (cerebral metastases) in the brain. This work has led to the establishment of another spin-off biotechnology, CH Biotech.

Monash University

VIC Australia

Priyank Shenoy completed B.Pharm. in 2010 and M.Pharm. in 2012 from the University of Pune, India. He worked as Assistant Professor in the University of Pune from 2012-13. He further pursued PhD (Faculty of Medicine) from a NATA accredited OECD GLP facility at the University of Queensland. During his tenure of PhD from 2014-2017, he also worked as Animal House Technician at the Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development, the University of Queensland. During his PhD with A/Prof. Irina Vetter, Prof. Maree Smith and Dr Andy Kuo, he worked on establishing, optimizing and characterizing a rat model of breast cancer induced bone pain using an array of techniques including behavioral, pharmacological, radiological, histological, immunohistochemical and transcriptomic assessments. In 2017, he joined the Drug Discovery Biology theme at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences as a Research Fellow with Dr. Nicholas Veldhuis in the Integrated Neurogenic Mechanisms laboratory. He currently leads multiple preclinical animal-based research projects, characterising human gene knock-in mouse models and developing novel drug delivery systems for the treatment of pain and inflammation.

Monash University

VIC Australia

Dr. Nicholas Veldhuis is a Research Fellow and co-leader of the Integrated Neurogenic Mechanisms (INM) Lab at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), holding a joint appointment in the Drug Discovery Biology Theme and with the Centre of Excellence in Bio-Nano Science and Technology (CBNS). His program focuses on the characterisation of GPCRs and TRP channels in pain and inflammatory pathways (spine, periphery and gut), the development of ligand binding assays for trafficking proteins, and the development of novel drug delivery systems for the inhibition of pain.

As a part of an international collaboration between Monash University, Nottingham University (UK) and Columbia University (USA), he has recently demonstrated that endosomal signalling of G protein-coupled receptors is critical for the complex pathophysiology of pain and can be selectively inhibited using drug delivery strategies to transport antagonists to the endoso-lysosomal pathway. This has led to several publications and patents, and an industry partnership with Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Nanoparticle studies have also been expanded into a broader program using microfluidic devices to study inflammatory pathways (NP uptake via leaky vasculature) and the delivery/uptake of nanoparticles to therapeutically target inflammation and cancer.