Professor Warwick Anderson is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NHMRC. He brings to the position extensive experience in health research leadership and management. Professor Anderson obtained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of New England in 1968 and his PhD from the University of Adelaide in 1972. He then spent three postdoctoral years at the Harvard Medical School in the USA, before returning to the University of Sydney. Later he was appointed Deputy Director of the Baker Medical Research Institute and from 2001 to 2006 was Head of School of Biomedical Sciences at Monash University. He has published more than 150 scientific papers, primarily in integrative cardiovascular and renal physiology and high blood pressure, and has made significant contributions over many years to the community, research societies and numerous Boards and Committees. He was Chair of NHMRC's Research Committee between 1997 and 2003. In January 2005 Professor Anderson was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to health and medical research through leadership roles with NHMRC, to the development of medical science at Monash University, and to hypertension and renal physiology research.

In April 2006 the Minister for Health and Ageing appointed Professor Anderson as CEO of NHMRC. The five-year appointment commenced on 7 June 2006. Professor Anderson was born in Grafton, NSW, and attended Chatsworth Island Primary School and Maclean High School.

Professor Jim Bishop AO is Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Government and is the principal medical adviser to the Minister and the Department of Health and Ageing. He plays a key, strategic role in developing and administering major health reforms for all Australians. In particular his close association with Australia's medical fraternities and researchers will be crucial in the development of evidence based public health policy.

Prior to his appointment Professor Bishop was a Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Sydney, Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA) in haematology. He was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine by research thesis (Platelet Transfusion Therapy) in 1990 and a Master of Medicine by research thesis (Induction Therapy for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) in 1999. Professor Bishop was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA from 1979 to 1981 and from 1981 to 1995 he was a consultant medical oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne. From 1995 to 2003, Professor Bishop was the Director of the Sydney Cancer Centre at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Concord Hospital in Sydney and he also directed the Cancer Service for the Central Sydney Area Health Service. From 2003 to April 2009 he was the CEO of the Cancer Institute NSW and the Chief Cancer Officer for NSW.

In 2008 Professor Bishop was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to medicine, particularly in the field of cancer treatment and research.

Professor Patrick McGorry, Australian of the Year 2010, is Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health (OYH), a world-renowned youth mental health organisation. He is also Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and founding member of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation (headspace) board. OYH comprises Australia's largest youth mental health research centre and a clinical service targeting the needs of young people with emerging serious mental illness, including first-episode psychosis. Professor McGorry and OYH have put Australia at the forefront of research and innovation in the prevention and treatment of mental illness. OYH has become the model upon which many other youth mental health services around the world are based. With an emphasis on early intervention and a commitment to educating the community to the early signs of mental illness, Professor McGorry's extraordinary 27-year contribution has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people the world over.

Richard Larkins is an Emeritus Professor, Monash University. He was Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University from September 2003 to July 2009. Prior to his appointment at Monash University he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne from 1998 to 2003. Before that he was Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, holding the James Stewart Chair at the Royal Melbourne Hospital from 1984 to 1997. Other appointments held from time to time at the Royal Melbourne Hospital included Head of the Division of Medicine, Head of a General Medical Unit and Director of Diabetes and Endocrinology. He had previous academic and clinical appointments at the Austin, Repatriation Medical Centre. His clinical and research interests are in diabetes, endocrinology and general medicine.

Professor Larkins's qualifications are MDBS and LLD(Hon) from the University of Melbourne, PhD from the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of the Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians (London), the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia and the Academy of Medicine of Singapore and he has been awarded honorary Fellowships by the American College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of Thailand and the Ceylon College of Physicians.

Past positions held by Professor Larkins include Chair of Universities Australia, Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, President of the Endocrine Society of Australia, Chair of the Accreditation Committee of the Australian Medical Council, member on two occasions of the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council and a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council. He was a member of the Doherty Committee of Inquiry into Medical Education and the Workforce.

Professor Larkins has been awarded the Eric Susman Prize for Medical Research, the Sir William Upjohn Medal for distinguished service to medicine, the Centenary of Federation Medal and is a Fellow of Trinity College, University of Melbourne and an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

Professor Larkins's current roles include President of the National Stroke Foundation, President of Australian University Sport, Chair of the Council of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Australia), Chair of the Research and Education Foundation of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Chair of the Incorporated Joint Venture Board for the Parkville (Victorian) Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Chair of the Biosciences Victoria Collaborative, Chair of the Victorian Selection Committee of the General Sir John Monash Foundation, Chair of the Council of Melbourne Grammar School, member of the Board of the Florey Neuroscience Institutes and International Trustee of the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (Malaysia).

Professor David de Kretser AC was born in 1939 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and migrated to Australia in 1949.

He was educated at Camberwell Grammar School, the University of Melbourne and Monash University. He received his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees from the University of Melbourne in 1962, and his Doctorate of Medicine from Monash University in 1969. His doctoral research focussed on the structure and function of the human testis.

Professor de Kretser was the founding Director of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development from 1991-2005, and a Professor of Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine of Monash University since 1978. He was also Associate Dean for Biotechnology Development in the Faculty from 2002 to 2006. In 2003, he was named a Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor. In 2000, with support form the Federal Government, Professor de Kretser initiated a highly successful program of community and professional education in male reproductive health called Andrology Australia.

Professor de Kretser's research into reproductive biology, infertility and endocrinology has seen over 600 papers featured in national and international peer reviewed journals, with many being presented at international meetings. Professor de Kretser has made important contributions to our understanding of how sperm and testosterone are produced and how these processes can be disturbed in infertile men. His laboratory also pioneered a program of research that resulted in the isolation of novel proteins that, in addition to controlling reproductive processes appear to have key roles in modulating the inflammatory response.

He has served on various boards, including the Human Reproduction Program at World Health Organisation and the Executive Council of the International Society of Andrology. Professor de Kretser is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

He was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006, and received the Centenary Medal in 2003.

Professor de Kretser and his wife Jan have four sons, and seven grandchildren. He was named Victorian Father of the Year in 2001. Professor de Kretser assumed office as the 28th Governor of Victoria on April 7th, 2006.

Kim Bennell is Professor and Director of the multidisciplinary Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine, in Physiotherapy at the School of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne. Kim's research focuses on conservative non-drug management of musculoskeletal conditions particularly osteoarthritis. Kim has been awarded a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council and together with physiotherapy researchers at the University of Queensland, was awarded an NHMRC program grant commencing in 2011 focusing on musculoskeletal conditions.

Dr Marienne Hibbert has led BioGrid Australia since its inception inn 2004. With a background in Health, Information Technology and Research, she has implemented complex Health and Medical research IT projects that aim to deliver improved health outcomes to the community.

Marienne has a background of research and services delivery - from managing the respiratory laboratory and its research at a major teaching hospital, establishing the Research Unit at the Centre for Adolescent Health in Melbourne as well as strategic planning in ICT in Health across a number of hospitals. She has been involved in the design and implementation of innovative use of ICT from first use of computer aided population surveys in adolescents to the current implementation of a privacy protected virtual repository. She has held positions of Director on a Board for a medium sized business as well as on Community Boards within the not-for-profit sector. She currently holds positions at Melbourne Health, at the Victorian Partnership of Advanced Computing and is a senior fellow at the University of Melbourne. She has been involved in advisory groups for Governments and others on eHealth, eResearch, data linkage, biospecimen banking and Health Informatics.

Declan Murphy moved to Melbourne, Australia in January 2010 to take up appointments as consultant urological surgeon at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Director of Outcomes Research and Risk Stratification at the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre. He had previously been consultant urological surgeon at Guys & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London.

Originally from Galway in the West of Ireland, he completed his basic surgical training in Dublin before moving to London to continue higher specialist training on the South Thames rotation of the London Deanery. He is trained in all aspects of open and endoscopic urology and has a particular interest in laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgery, particularly for the management of prostate, renal and bladder cancer. Following completion of his specialist training at Guy's and having been awarded the FRCS Urol in 2006, he spent a year in Melbourne completing a Fellowship in Laparoscopic & Robotic Urology under the supervision of Professor Tony Costello. He has a strong academic background and has published extensively in the field of minimally-invasive urology for the management of prostate, renal and bladder cancer. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Robotic Surgery and is an awarded reviewer for European Urology, The Journal of Urology, the BJUi and the Journal of Sexual Medicine. He is also interested in the use of information and communication technology for surgical education and has promoted a number of multimedia initiatives to harness the power of new technology for patient and doctor education.

Terence O'Brien (MBBS Melb. MD Melb. FRACP) is The James Stewart Professor of Medicine and Head of The Department of Medicine, The Royal Melbourne and Western Hospitals, and Head of the Epilepsy Program and consultant neurologist at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. He leads a large translational research team undertaking both basic studies, involving animal models, and clinical studies. He is a specialist in both neurology and clinical pharmacology, with particular expertise in epilepsy, anti-epileptic drugs and in-vivo imaging in animals models and humans. He did his clinical and research training at St. Vincent's and Royal Melbourne Hospitals in Melbourne, and then the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA (1995-1998). He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed original papers in leading neurological, pharmacological and imaging journals, over 500 abstracts and 10 book chapters.

Dr Matt Sabin trained at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London (UK) before undertaking general paediatric training on the South and West Coasts of England. Following success in the membership examinations of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, he read for a PhD investigating the links between Childhood Obesity and Type 2 diabetes. This was funded through a Diabetes UK Clinical Training Fellowship.

In 2006, he moved to the Royal Children's Hospital and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Here he undertook sub-speciality training in Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, and was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in December 2009. He currently works as a Consultant in the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. Alongside this, he works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Monash University.

Matt has strong clinical and research interests in childhood obesity and its links with associated diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. He has been integrally involved in the development of Weight Management Services at the Royal Children's Hospital, as well as the formation of a large cross-campus obesity research initiative at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute. Over 200 new families each year are seen through the Royal Children's Hospital Weight Management Service, making it the largest tertiary-hospital paediatric weight management service in Australia. This acts as a central axis to his research endeavours.

Clinical research involves the collection of data from overweight and obese children allowing further investigation into the role of genetics vs. environment in the development of obesity and progression to disease. Laboratory research is centred on specifically investigating the role that early nutrition plays in altering susceptibility to later obesity and diabetes, as well as probing ways in which processes underlying these conditions can be altered by growth factors and modulators of inflammation. Further details are available at: http://www.mcri.edu.au/projects/m-powr/default.asp.

Matt is also Deputy Director of the University of Melbourne Obesity Consortium and serves on the board of the Victorian Obesity Consortium.

Professor Loane Skene LLD (UMelb), LLM (Mon), LLB (Hons) (UMelb), is a Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She is a member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee and has served on numerous federal and state advisory committees, especially in relation to genetics and the law. In 2005, she was Deputy Chair of the Lockhart Committee on Human Cloning and Embryo Research.

Justin Zobel is Professor of Computational Bioinformatics in the University's Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, and leads the Computing for Life Sciences activities within National ICT Australia's Victorian Research Laboratory. He is currently the Interim Director of the Victorian Life Sciences Computing Initiative. Professor Zobel received his PhD from the University of Melbourne and for many years was based at RMIT University, where he led the Search Engine group. He is the author of a textbook on research methods and numerous academic papers, has led a range of research projects, and has been part of several research commercialisations.

In the research community, Professor Zobel is best known for his role in the development of algorithms for efficient text retrieval, which underpin applications such as search engines deployed on the web. His research areas includes search, bioinformatics, fundamental algorithms and data structures, plagiarism detection, compression, and research methods. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Information Retrieval, and an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Information Systems, Information Processing & Management, and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering.

Cardiologist at St Vincent's Hospital and the University of Melbourne Department of Medicine.

He trained in Medicine and Cardiology at St Vincent's Hospital and then completed a PhD in atherosclerosis research in the Uni of Melb, Department of Medicine.

Andrew then worked at Stanford University Medical Center in California for 3 years training in Interventional Cardiology as well as working as an NHMRC Neil Hamilton Fairley Postdoctoral Research Fellow focused on Translational Research in Atherosclerosis in the Falk Cardiovascular Research Institute at Stanford University.

Andrew is currently appointed to the Departments of Cardiology and University Department of Medicine at St Vincent's and the St Vincent's Institute and is the Director of the University of Melbourne Lipid and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Clinic. He is currently the University of Melbourne David Bickart Clinical Research Fellow. He leads the Translational Cardiovascular Biology group and is involved in a range of projects focused on biomarkers of atherosclerosis, links between insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease and nitric oxide biology.

His clinical interests are in all areas of Interventional Cardiology and assessment and therapy of Cardiovascular Risk, particularly in high risk patients such as those with insulin resistance, renal disease and peripheral arterial disease.

Other speakers include:

• Dr Stella Clark, CEO, Bio21 Cluster



• Professor Lex Doyle, University of Melbourne/RWH



• Mr Russell Francis, Patient representative, Nucleus Network



• Ms Priscilla Gates, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute



• Mr Andrew Giddy, Nucleus Network



• Professor Jane Gunn, University of Melbourne



• Dr Marienne Hibbert, Biogrid Australia



• Dr Harriet Hiscock, Royal Children's Hospital/University of Melbourne



• Professor Malcolm McConville, Bio21 Institute



• Assoc Prof Elisabeth Northam, Royal Children's Hospital



• Dr David O'Neal, University of Melbourne



• Professor George Patton, RCH/University of Melbourne



• Assoc Professor David Thomas, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute



• Assoc Professor Rob Weintraub, Royal Children's Hospital