Researchers in our division study how cell growth and differentiation is regulated in normal development and in disease.

There are many links between abnormal development and disease. For example, the molecular mechanisms underlying the rapid, but regulated, growth of cells during embryonic development are frequently deregulated in cancer. Our aim is to utilise this knowledge to identify potential new targets for therapy.

We are particularly interested in the packaging of genetic material (DNA) with proteins in the cell nucleus, which influences how cells use different genes. The packaging of DNA can also be disrupted in disease. 

Diseases of interest include intellectual disability disorders, prenatal stroke, blood stem cell failure, muscular dystrophy and cancer.

Health impact

Cancers: leukaemia, lymphoma

Development and ageing: congenital diseases, epigenetics, FSHD, heart disease and stroke, Prader Willi syndrome, intellectual disabilities, blood stem cell function, KAT6A syndrome, Say-Barber-Biesecker-Young-Simpson syndrome, genitopatellar syndrome

Other: bioinformatics

Division news

• Surprise cell death discovery provides birth defect clues
• Gene discoveries aid healthy development
• New anti-cancer drugs put cancers to sleep…permanently
• Surprise finding uncovers balancing act between birth defects and cancer
• Melbourne technology boosts effort to map every cell in human body

Division heads

Professor Marnie Blewitt

Professor Anne Voss

Lab heads

Associate Professor Joan Heath

Dr Hamish King

Professor Matt Ritchie

Dr Samir Taoudi

Associate Professor Tim Thomas

Dr Stephin Vervoort

Division coordinators

Dr Tanya de Jong-Curtain

Fiona McGrath