Group Leader – Senior Lecturer

NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow

Griffith Research Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD), Discovery Biology, Griffith University.

Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland (Honorary)

Biography

Dr Giacomotto, NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow, is a young Group Leader focusing on translational research, genes and diseases, imaging/automatic systems, drug discovery, and medical applications. He started his career in the pharma industry (Sanofi-Aventis, Paris) to now lead a research group within Griffith University. His group aims at translating little discoveries made in a single cell or in a model organism to applications or treatments for human. His work has led to major discoveries such as unique models of human neuromuscular diseases and compounds/drugs in clinics. He has worked with a wide diversity of models, including cell lines and mouse models, and his team is now taking advantage of the zebrafish model. Dr Giacomotto believes that this small fish will have an important impact in the seek of treatments for neuromuscular and neurological disorders, and for drug discovery as a whole (see his research on drug discovery and phenotypic screening for more details). He believes in translational research, the zebrafish is for him a fantastic complementary model to cell lines in order to recapitulate human diseases and run research and screening programs for the search of innovative drug treatments. His ultimate goal aims at alleviating the suffering of patients.