Professor of the Day: Professor Matt Brown, Immunology

Professor Matt Brown is Professor of Immunogenetics and Director of the Immunology Program at the University of Queensland, based at the Diamantina Institute and Institute of Molecular Biosciences, a position he has held since September 2005. Prior to that he was Professor of Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, where he worked since 1994. He initially trained in rheumatology in Sydney, and remains clinically active, with a special interest in ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

Professor Brown's group researches genetics of common diseases, particularly musculoskeletal diseases. They are the central genetics research centre for the Australo-Anglo-American Spondyloarthritis Consortium, the main international AS genetics group. In addition, the group are performing genomewide association studies in multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis and cervical cancer, and have genetics projects ongoing in rheumatoid arthritis and several other diseases. Professor Brown is a Principal Investigator of the Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium which did much of the development work and proof of principle studies for genomewide association studies, and is now involved in developing the approaches required for downstream genetics research (resequencing, fine-mapping, copy number variation studies). Professor Brown’s group also collaborate with researchers at the MRC Mammalian Research Facility Harwell, England, in ENU-mutagenesis approaches to develop new mouse strains with bone and joint disorders.

Head to the UQ Diamantina Institute webpage.