Ian Smyth

Ian is a group leader in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He undertook his PhD at the University of Queensland and then spent time as a postdoctoral researcher at the Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh and the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute. He returned to Australia in 2006 to establish his own laboratory. Ian's research group aims to understand the basic genetic pathways that control embryonic development, particularly focusing on studies of the kidney and skin. They examine a number of different inherited diseases affecting these organs in which particular genes have been disrupted. Part of the challenge of this work is to visualise what’s happening normally during organ development and then comparing those results with occasions when development goes awry.

Ian says: "We are interested in trying to understand how development of our organs is controlled by our genes and consequently what happens when the function of particular genes is disrupted."

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