Research Advisory Committee

Ian completed his first degree in Newcastle upon Tyne England and moved to Australia in 1984 to complete his PhD at Prince Henry’s Institute Melbourne and Monash University. In 1991 Ian moved to the Baker Heart Research Institute and was Associate Director until his move to Monash University in 2004. Up until the end of 2020, Ian was Vice-Provost (Research & Research Infrastructure) at Monash University, where he played a university-wide leadership role, with responsibility for research strategy, infrastructure and alliances. A major focus was building linkages to industry and encouraging large companies and SMEs to use the university’s globally-recognised research capabilities and tools to innovate, capture new opportunities and solve problems. Ian has a background in both industry and research. He is a leader in his field of medical research, which has resulted in over 260 publications and many patents. Ian receives regular invitations to speak at international meetings and his research has had a direct impact on human health and led to changes in clinical practice. Ian also co-founded a proteomics-based, publicly listed, biotechnology company, which he helped build to IPO and trade sale and he continues to collaborate and consult widely with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Ian is now Professor Emeritus at Monash and as well as consulting for Monash and other organisations, Ian is a board director and chair of a number of national and international senior government and non-government advisory boards as well as serving on a number of national and international committees, many with a strong industry focus. Ian’s unique background in business and research drives his passion to get entrepreneurs and industry collaborating and using university research capabilities to innovate. He believes that Australia lags behind many countries in utilising this enormous asset and is passionate about finding ways to make the collaborative process as efficient and effective as possible for industry, sharing outcomes and success stories to build awareness.

Noel has a PhD in pharmacology/medicinal chemistry from the University of Sydney. His work experience includes positions in research, research translation, commercialisation, start-up companies, biotechnology and philanthropy. In the early 90’s his patented discoveries in type II diabetes led to a commercial partnership where he lead a team of researchers at the University of Sydney and for which he was presented the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Biota Award for Medicinal Chemistry. Noel then moved into industry where he held senior management positions in research and business development before becoming the CEO of a number of listed (ASX) and unlisted biotechnology/health related companies. In 2009, Noel’s attention turned to philanthropy where he led the establishment of Research Australia’s successful philanthropy program as the Director of Philanthropy. He was a member of the Federal Governments Advisory Council for Intellectual Property (ACIP) from 2009 to 2014, advising the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and was Chair of the ACIP review into collaborations between Publicly Funded Research Organisations and Industry. The Minister released this report in late 2012.

He is presently Professor Emeritus in Hematology at the University of Sydney and Consultant Hematologist at RPAH.He is the immediate past Chair of the National ARCBS Ethics committee Prof. Joshua received his BSC, MB BS, and his D Phil degrees from University of Sydney and University of Oxford. He is a fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. Prof. Joshua is scientific advisor and member of the International Myeloma Foundation,past Councillor on the International Myeloma Society and he serves on the editorial board of numerous journals. Prof. Joshua has a long standing interest in both basic and clinical research in Myeloma and has been supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, International Myeloma Foundation, NSW State Cancer Council, Cancer institute of NSW , the University of Sydney Cancer Research Fund and the Sydney Foundation for Medical research. He has held sabbatical appointments as a visiting scholar at the University of Birmingham and the Dana Farber Cancer Centre at Harvard. Professor Joshua’s main research interest has been in the concept of host tumour control in myeloma and has published extensively on this topic. His group was the first to describe the presence of clonal T cells in myeloma and demonstrated their beneficial effect on prognosis.

He was also appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (General Division) in 2019 and has won numerous national and international awards during his career. Professor von Itzstein led the team responsible for the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of the anti-influenza drug, Relenza®, which has been approved for the treatment of influenza worldwide since 1999. This discovery is considered to be a significant outcome and flagship in glycotherapeutic and antiviral drug development in the last century and has further consolidated the world platform of using carbohydrates as drugs and carbohydrate-recognising proteins as drug discovery targets. Professor von Itzstein is the Director of Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics which is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere and only one of a few in the world. The Institute’s researchers collaborate with leading scientists around the globe to build a critical mass around research in areas of clinically significant diseases. Professor von Itzstein is an NHMRC Investigator L3 since 2021 and has a major research effort in the area of drug discovery focused on influenza, parainfluenza and other viruses, drug-resistant bacteria and cancer.  He has international standing in glycoscience and drug discovery particularly in the area of anti-infective drug discovery.  Professor von Itzstein has published over 240 papers and invited reviews and has extensively patented his research.

He joined HCF in 2004 and during that time he has been responsible for chronic disease management programs, clinical governance, doctor networks and utilisation review (analytics). He is a medical graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School (1986) and worked in general practice and primary care clinics in Johannesburg before moving into health informatics where he developed health care quality measurement tools and interventions based on pharmacy and health insurer datasets. His areas of interest are health technology and health information systems that improve the effectiveness of the health care system. He has a commercial background and holds a certificate in management from the University of the Witwatersrand (1998) an MBA from the Cambridge University in the UK (1999) and he completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course in 2009. During his time at HCF he has pioneered Australia’s largest scale chronic disease management program which has supported 51,000 people with chronic conditions to reduce complications leading to hospitalisation. He is a reviewer for the HCF Research Foundation, a fellow of the International Federation of Health Plans and is a member of their Expert Panel on Clinical Effectiveness and High Cost Drugs. In 2017 he was a member of the Clinical Definitions Working Group of the Private Health Ministerial Advisory Committee for the Department of Health.

Her early career was with Westpac Financial Markets in money markets and foreign exchange. In 2002, she joined Mr Christopher Abbott AM (founding partner of institutional fund manager Maple-Brown Abbott), in his private family office Asia Union Investments Pty Ltd, making significant investments into private and public Australian biotechs, lifescience funds and VCs. In 2015, Alison joined Melbourne based lifescience fund Bioscience Managers to establish two new funds: a VCLP and BioScience Managers Translation Fund I, as part of the Australian Government’s Biomedical Translation Fund initiative. In 2018, Alison left Bioscience Managers to co-found Sydney-based digital health company Evidentli Pty Ltd, an A.I. company that automates the analysis of ‘real world data’ designed to be used by clinicians and medical researchers. In 2019, she joined the research advisory committee of NFMRI assessing new technologies emerging across Australian universities and medical institutes. In October 2020 she joined their board. Also in 2020 Alison joined Australian CAR T company Chimeric Therapeutics Ltd and radiotherapeutics company Radiopharm Theranostics Ltd as Project Manager. Both companies listed on the ASX in 2021 (ASX:CHM and ASX:RAD).

She is Australia’s leading clinician-scientist in the field of NTM lung infections (top-rated expert in NTM in Australia, top 0.13% experts worldwide (Expertscape)). At the University of Queensland she is head of the Greenslopes Clinical Unit, Faculty of Medicine, and leads the Mycobacterial Diseases & Bronchiectasis Research group, part of Gallipoli Medical Research, Greenslopes Private Hospital.
Professor Thomson’s clinical work is focussed on specialised clinics for patients with NTM infections and bronchiectasis, hence she has a deep understanding of the burning questions posed by these diseases and the value of translational, clinically relevant research. Her current research interests are broad and interdisciplinary, and include host susceptibility to NTM lung disease, NTM in cystic fibrosis, the microbiome of bronchiectasis, and the clinical and environmental epidemiology of NTM infection. As such she has a wide range of collaborators within Australia and overseas. Her program is the first NTM research program in Australia, born out of the work of her PhD. She independently established, directed and provided funding to the program which has grown through international networking, collaboration and leadership. Hence she understands the challenges faced by early career researchers, particularly navigating the private medical sector and sourcing funding for an orphan disease. Through international connections, Prof Thomson was instrumental in establishing the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry, securing funding and linkages with the European and US registries to facilitate collaborative research. Prof Thomson is lead investigator on clinical trials for NTM and bronchiectasis, and has formed the Australian NTM Research Consortium, to facilitate multisite collaborative NTM research and a biobank facility. She has held several leadership roles within the American Thoracic Society, including Board member and Chair of the Pulmonary Infections and TB Assembly (2020-22).