Scientific Advisory Committee | Expert Researchers and Clinicians

Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)

The SAC is comprised of local researchers, clinicians, consumers, and other important stakeholders. The role of the SAC is to advise and support the SAGC Steering Committee and provide input into the strategic direction of the SAGC.

Associate Professor Bettina Berger Scientific Director, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine
Adelaide University

Full Bio

With a background in biotechnology and a PhD in molecular plant biology, A/Prof Bettina Berger used a two-year fellowship at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics to focus on the then emerging field of plant phenomics. Since 2010, A/Prof Berger has work at the Adelaide node of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility and in 2015 became Scientific Director. She enjoys the diversity of working in a national research facility, with a whole range of different users, research questions and challenges on a daily basis. A/Prof Berger has focused on establishing protocols and methods for high-throughput screening of various plant species in controlled environments using imaging technology to help the research community take advantage of the benefits that modern phenotyping techniques have to offer.

Dr. Anthony Borneman Principle Research Scientist
The Australian Wine Research Institute

Full Bio

Anthony is a Research Manager at the Australian Wine Research Institute and an Affiliate of Adelaide University. He leads research that is focused on applying genomics to understand the genetic basis of biological diversity in winemaking, including grapevines, commercial wine yeast and bacteria and wild ferments.

Professor Alex Brown Aboriginal Health Equity Theme Leader at SAHMRI, and Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University

Full Bio

Alex is an internationally leading Aboriginal clinician/researcher who has worked his entire career in Aboriginal health in the provision of public health services, infectious diseases and chronic disease care, health care policy and research. He has established three highly regarded research groups over the last 15 years, and currently leads a large research group (50% of whom identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait islander Australians). Much of his work has been at the difficult interface of geographical isolation, complex cultural context, severe socioeconomic disadvantage, inequitable access to and receipt of care and profound health disparities. His transdisciplinary program of research focuses on documenting the burden and contributors to health inequality in Indigenous Australians, with a primary focus on cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and cancer. Since commencing at SAHMRI 8 years ago, he has overseen the establishment of an integrated centre of excellence in Indigenous chronic disease and public health research. He leads projects in CVD epidemiology and policy; the social, clinical, and biological correlates of diabetes and its complications; intervention trials; documenting cancer inequalities and how best to overcome them; innovative mixed-methods primary care research; and evaluations of health care models, systems and programs.

Associate Professor Pascal Duijf Enterprise Fellow, Centre of Cancer Biology at Adelaide University

Full Bio

Associate Professor Pascal Duijf received a PhD degree in Human Genetics from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. As a postdoctoral fellow, he trained in cancer biology and genetics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He then moved to Brisbane, first to University of Queensland and then to Queensland University of Technology, to establish and lead a research group studying genomic instability in cancer. Currently, he is an Enterprise Fellow at UniSA, within the Centre for Cancer Biology and UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences. His research aims to study genomic instability in cancer in order to understand underlying mechanisms and develop new treatment options for patients. To that end, his group uses a broad range of wet-lab and dry-lab tools, including in cell biology, genome engineering, mouse models, pathology, cancer genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology.

Professor Robert Edwards Director of Bioinformatics and Human Microbiology
Flinders Accelerator for Microbiome Exploration (FAME)

Full Bio

Rob is the Director of Bioinformatics and Human Microbiology for the Flinders Accelerator for Microbiome Exploration (FAME). He coordinates the computational analysis of DNA sequences associated with the microbiome. Although Rob's research focus is on the human microbiome, he has also published work on many different environments. Prof Edwards research focus has led to breakthroughs in our understanding of how viruses interact with their hosts, and how viruses from around the world carry important genetic information.

Dr. Luke Isbel Group Leader, The South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI) & The Adelaide Centre for Epigenetics (ACE)

Full Bio

Dr Luke Isbel is a group leader, holding a joint appointment at The South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI) & The Adelaide Centre for Epigenetics (ACE), located within the University of Adelaide. He runs an inclusive & creative team aiming to understand how epigenetic forces (i.e. on chromatin) serve as a guiding force to direct gene regulatory machinery in cells. This involves fundamental & applied models, particularly around the genomic regulatory factors that are frequently mutated in cancer.

Luke returned to Australia in late 2023 to establish his own laboratory, after his PhD with Professor Emma Whitelaw and a postdoctoral position in Basel, Switzerland with Professor Dirk Schübeler. He has held prestigious Fellowships - the Marie Sklodowska-curie Fellowship (EU) & CJ Martin Early Career Fellowship (NHMRC), & is currently a Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellow. He is the recipient of the 2019 Chiquet-Ehrismann prize, the 2024 Max Burger prize & the 2024 Lorne Genome Mid-Career Prize.

Associate Professor Bastien Llamas Group Leader, Molecular Anthropology, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), Adelaide University

Full Bio

Bastien is an evolutionary geneticist with a strong interdisciplinary background in genomics and biomedical research, trained in France and Canada before relocating to Australia in 2008. He leads the Molecular Anthropology Group at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), where he applies cutting-edge archaeogenomic, genomic and bioinformatic approaches to explore human evolution, adaptation, and population history. His research focuses on integrating ancient and modern Indigenous genetic diversity, with a particular emphasis on ethical and inclusive practices in genomics.

He holds concurrent appointments at the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics at the Australian National University, and in the Indigenous Genomics team at the Kids Research Institute. Bastien is deeply involved in mentoring, capacity building, and national efforts to strengthen Indigenous participation and leadership in genomic research.

Dr. Wai Yee Low Senior Bioinformatician, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Adelaide University

Full Bio

Dr. Wai Yee Low has more than 9 years post-doctoral experience in academia, mainly in genomics and bioinformatics. He has expertise in analysing genomic data of a diverse range of bovine species such as cattle, water buffalo and gaur, which has resulted more than 40 research publications, including multiple papers in Nature Communications and Nature. He also created the first indicine cattle (Brahman) reference genome and played a key role in the creation of more cattle pan-genomes through his affiliation with the Bovine Pangenome Consortium.

Dr. Jessica Marathe Cardiologist, Royal Adelaide Hospital

Full Bio

Jessica Marathe is a cardiologist currently undertaking subspecialty training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide. She completed her undergraduate medical training at the University of Tasmania in 2012, and subsequently moved to Adelaide to complete her internship and has worked in Adelaide since. Jessica has had a longstanding interest in cardiovascular genetics, having helped established the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Genetic Heart Disease Registry in 2010. She is a member of the Cardiac Genetics Subcommittee of the Statewide Cardiology Clinical Network, and helped establish the original clinical pathway for cardiac genetic testing within South Australia. Jessica is also about to submit her PhD which has focussed on cardiovascular genetics, including patient experiences living with inherited cardiac conditions.

Professor Hamish Scott Joint Director of the CCB ACRF Cancer Genome FacilitySA Pathology

Full Bio

Prof Scott leads a dynamic academic/diagnostic department integrating basic and clinical research. It has developed and translated new genomic technologies including national and international firsts, for both germline (e.g. accredited WES and RNAseq) and somatic (e.g. BCR-ABL resistance) disease for improved diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. He is both an advocate for and user of national diagnostic and research genomic networks for patient benefit. For example, he is the scientific lead of a national “Genomic autopsy of perinatal death” study (MRFF – GHFM) through Australian Genomics and a molecular screening and clinical trial pilot program, the Molecular Screening and Therapeutics in Leukaemia and Lymphoma (MoST-Lly) with Omico.

Associate Professor Luke Selth Director of the Prostate Cancer Research Group
Flinders University

Full Bio

Selth completed his PhD at University of Adelaide and then undertook post-doctoral studies at the London Research Institute, funded by a prestigious European Molecular Biology Organization post-doctoral fellowship. He returned to Adelaide in 2009 and has since established an internationally-recognised research program aimed at improving outcomes for men with prostate cancer. Selth regularly publishes his research in prominent journals including recent papers in Cancer Research, Nature Medicine, European Urology, Science Translational Medicine, EMBO Journal, Oncogene and Nucleic Acids Research. His lab is currently funded by Cancer Council SA, Movember, The Hospital Research Foundation, Flinders University, the Flinders Foundation and Cancer Australia.

Dr. Anna Sheppard Lecturer in Bioinformatics at Adelaide University

Full Bio

Dr Anna Sheppard is a Lecturer in Bioinformatics at the University of Adelaide. Her research applies bacterial whole-genome sequencing to study the epidemiology and transmission of pathogens within outbreaks and across geographic and ecological boundaries, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance driven by mobile genetic elements. She has developed novel methods for tracking resistance genes, and her work has been published in leading journals including NEJM, Nature Microbiology, and PNAS. Anna completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide in 2009, followed by postdoctoral training at Kiel University (Germany) and the University of Oxford (UK). She returned to Adelaide as a Lecturer in 2021.

Dr. Ying Ying Wong Research Fellow at the Adelaide University

Full Bio

Ying is a Research Fellow at the Adelaide University. Her research, supported by an international fellowship from Breakthrough T1D, focuses on Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) immunogenomics, with the primary aim of identifying early immune signatures and genetic changes linked to disease progression in children at risk using techniques such as single-cell and bulk transcriptomics, epigenetic profiling and computational analysis. Ying works closely with the ENDIA consortium, integrating longitudinal genomic data to identify early markers and potential therapeutic targets for T1D. She also actively contributes to training and capacity building, providing expertise in genomic protocols and bioinformatics to researchers locally and nationally. Ying is interested in translating genomic findings into meaningful outcomes. She actively engages in collaborations and exploring new computational methods to advance personalized medicine for autoimmune diseases.