معرفی
Professor Margaret Sunde is a leading academic in molecular biomedicine at the University of Sydney's School of Medical Sciences. She holds the position of Academic Director of the Sydney Analytical Core Research Facility and is a member of the Centre for Drug Discovery Innovation and the University of Sydney Nano Institute. Her research focuses on amyloid fibrils in disease and their functional roles in microorganisms, particularly fungal hydrophobins involved in infection and immune evasion. Key areas include understanding how amyloid structures contribute to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes, while also exploring their beneficial roles in microbial systems.
Education: BSc (Biochemistry) from the University of Cape Town, PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, and postdoctoral training at the University of Oxford and Cambridge. Her career included a Medical Research Council Research Fellowship and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.
Research Interests: Functional and pathological amyloids, hydrophobin self-assembly, necroptosis signaling, and drug discovery targeting fungal infections. Current projects include structural studies of RHIM amyloids in necroptosis, functional amyloids in fungal pathogenesis, and super-resolution imaging of amyloid structures.
Awards: 2019 Bob Robertson Medal from the Australian Biophysics Society.
Grants: Over $5M in funding from ARC, NHMRC, and industry partnerships. Recent grants include development of fluorescent sensors for neurodegeneration imaging and structural studies of viral-host amyloid interactions.
International Collaborations: Partnerships with Columbia University (US), Institut Pasteur (France), and the University of Edinburgh (UK) on functional amyloid projects.
Students: Supervising Olivia Lavidis (necroptosis viral vectors), Tianchen Li (biomaterials design), and Benedict Tai (protein condensates).
