Invited Speakers

Prof Kathrin Plath
UCLA, USA

Kathrin Plath, PhD, is a Professor of Biological Chemistry at UCLA, an HHMI Scholar, and an internationally recognized leader in gene regulation, X-chromosome inactivation, and cell identity. Her lab has made foundational contributions to understanding how long noncoding RNAs control chromatin states, how X-chromosome dosage compensation is established and maintained, and how epigenetic mechanisms shape cell fate during reprogramming and early development. She also serves on the editorial boards of several leading journals, including Cell and Science, and continues to drive innovative work using stem cell–based embryo models and approaches to uncover mechanisms underlying female-biased diseases.

Prof Nicolas H. Thomä
Switzerland

Dr. Nicolas Thomä was educated at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he received his PhD with Dr. Peter Leadlay in Chemical Biology; followed by postdoctoral work in structural biology in the laboratories of Prof. Roger Goody (Max-Planck-Institute Dortmund, Germany) and Prof. Nikola Pavletich (MSKCC, New York, USA). In 2006 Nicolas became a group leader-at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, where he was promoted to senior group leader in 2012. As of 2023 Nicolas Thomä holds the Paternot chair for Interdisciplinary Cancer Research ISREC and the EPFL in Lausanne, and is the head of the drug development center at the EPFL school of life sciences.

Dr Guohong Li
China

Laboratory of Chromatin and Epigenetic Regulation
College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University
Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dr. Guohong Li is currently a professor of College of Life Sciences at Wuhan University (Hubei, China). Dr. Li received his undergraduate degree from Wuhan University and his Master of Science from Peking University Health Center in 1998 and his Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. Rer. Nat.) degree from Heidelberg University in 2003. Dr. Li carried out his postdoctoral training with Dr. Danny Reinberg at UMDNJ and NYU from 2003 to 2009. Dr. Li joined the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2010 as a CAS Hundred Talents Investigator, and Dr. Li is the deputy director of National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules. Dr. Li’s group has been mainly focusing on studying the structure and biological functions of the 30-nm chromatin fiber in epigenetic regulation of gene expression, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms. In the past years, Dr. Li’s group has made significant progresses on the structure and function of 30-nm chromatin fiber, the structure and function of centromeric chromatin, and epigenetic regulation of chromatin dynamics during cell fate determination. Dr. Li serves on editorial boards of Genome Biol., BAA-gene regulatory, and JBC, and receives a number of awards and honors, including Tan Jiazhen Awards for Life Sciences, HHMI International Research Scholar, New Cornerstone Investigator etc..

Dr Joanna Achinger-Kawecka

Dr Joanna Achinger-Kawecka is a Laboratory Head at the South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI) at the University of Adelaide.  She completed her PhD in cancer epigenetics at the University of Tubingen, Germany, supported by the Marie Curie Fellowship.  Her work has significantly advanced the understanding of the 3D genome and epigenome in cancer, including the development of innovative technologies and bioinformatics for mapping 3D chromatin structure in cancer cells. Her research has been recognised by numerous awards including the Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship, National Breast Cancer Foundation Fellowships and Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia Young Investigator Award. She joined SAiGENCI in 2024, where she established the 3D Chromatin Organisation Laboratory. The lab integrates computational biology, functional genomics, and translational research to explore the principles of 3D genome folding and gene deregulation in rare and hard-to-treat cancers.

Prof Marnie Blewitt

Marnie Blewitt is a lab head and Deputy Director at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. She received her PhD from The University of Sydney in 2005, then undertook a post-doctoral period working on stem cell biology and the novel epigenetic protein SMCHD1. Her research is centred on understanding the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic control, and how such mechanisms can be manipulated in the context of disease. Marnie’s team’s work has recently resulted in spinout Togglelux Therapeutics, that focuses on inhibiting SMCHD1 to treat the imprinting disorder Prader Willi Syndrome. Marnie’s work has been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science Gani medal, The Genetics Society of AustralAsia Ross Crozier medal and the Lorne Genome Women in Science award.

Prof Chen Davidovich

Prof. Chen Davidovich is a structural biologist and biochemist who has been a Lab Head at Monash University since 2015. The Davidovich Lab focuses on the mechanistic basis of gene repression and RNA-mediated regulation of chromatin modifiers. The lab integrates structural biology approaches, including single-particle cryo-EM, cryo-ET, and X-ray crystallography, with biophysical and biochemical analyses of reconstituted systems in vitro, molecular and genomic studies in cells, and functional studies in genetically modified mouse models.

Prof. Davidovich conducted his postdoctoral research on RNA-mediated regulation of PRC2 with Prof. Tom Cech (CU Boulder/HHMI) and completed his PhD on X-ray crystallography of ribosomes with Prof. Ada Yonath (Weizmann Institute). He is currently an ARC Future Fellow and was previously an EMBL-Australia Group Leader, Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, Rothschild Fellow, and Adams Scholar of the Israeli Academy.

Professor Geoff Faulkner

Professor Geoff Faulkner is a computational biologist interested in mobile DNA and its contribution to mammalian biology. Prof Faulkner was awarded a PhD from the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2009 and currently holds a joint appointment between the Mater Research Institute and the Queensland Brain Institute. He has authored 107 peer-reviewed publications, including 56 as senior author, and these works have accrued more than 24,000 citations. Prof Faulkner's latest work is focused on the use of long-read sequencing to comprehensively survey DNA methylation and other mechanisms regulating mobile DNA activity during development and in human disease.

Prof Luke Selth

Professor Luke Selth leads the Prostate Cancer Research Group at Flinders University and is Co-Director of the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI) Cancer Impact Program. His research focusses on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which prostate tumours become resistant to therapy and metastasise, and using this knowledge to develop new drugs and biomarkers to improve patient outcomes. Luke’s team collaborates widely with prostate cancer consumer advocates, biologists, chemists, clinicians, computational biologists and engineers – in Australia and around the world – to maximise the impact of their research. They are currently funded by NHMRC, Cancer Australia, Cancer Council NSW, ARC, The Hospital Research Foundation and Flinders Foundation.

Prof Kate Quinlan

Kate Quinlan is a Professor at the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, UNSW Sydney. She received her PhD from the University of Sydney in 2006 and, following postdoctoral appointments at the Children's Hospital at Westmead and the University of Cambridge, established her research group focussed on mammalian gene regulation at UNSW Sydney in 2018. Along with a dedicated team of postdocs, PhD students and honours students, Kate is exploring how transcription factors read both the DNA sequence and epigenetic landscape to find their target genes.