2020 Laureate Profile: Professor David James

 

Professor David James

Administering Organisation: The University of Sydney 

Fellowship project summary: 

FL200100096: This project aims to dissect how genes interact with the environment to control healthy ageing using a multidisciplinary approach combining state-of-the-art omics technologies, metabolic and ageing phenotyping and genetic analysis and a highly diverse model system. The project is expected to establish fundamental new understanding of the ageing process by identifying genes that regulate ageing either alone or in response to diet; by defining the mechanism by which such genes control ageing and by identifying biomarkers that predict different ageing outcomes. This knowledge will contribute to future strategies based on genetic testing and biomarkers to optimise healthy ageing in humans.  

Australian Research Council funding: $3,367,940.00

About Professor David James

Professor James currently holds the Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Molecular Systems Biology and he is the Domain Leader for Biology at the Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney.

Professor James has made major contributions to our understanding of insulin action. In the late 1980s he published a series of journal articles in Nature describing the identification and characterization of the insulin responsive glucose transporter GLUT4. Professor James then focused his efforts on unveiling the cellular and molecular control of insulin-stimulated glucose transport. He has also made contributions in the area of SNARE proteins, signal transduction and more recently in systems biology.

Professor James has won several awards including the Glaxo Wellcome Medal for Medical Research and the Kellion medal for outstanding contributions to Diabetes research. In 2007 he was elected as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. He was awarded the NSW Premier Prize in Excellence in Medical Biological Sciences in 2016 and was selected as an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 2019. He is on the editorial board of a number of prestigious journals and he is regularly invited to speak at key international meetings on diabetes and metabolism.

Find out more about Professor James’ research by visiting his profile page on The University of Sydney website or Metabocybernectics Lab.

For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme page.
 

Image credit: The University of Sydney