معرفی
Dr. Michael Janitz is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences. With over 25 years of research experience, he has established himself as an internationally recognized expert in transcriptomics and next-generation sequencing technologies. His work bridges computational biology with experimental approaches to understand complex neurological disorders and cancer mechanisms.
Dr. Janitz holds a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, a DSc from the University of Leipzig, and a Graduate Certificate in University Learning and Teaching (GCULT) from UNSW Sydney. His educational background laid the foundation for his interdisciplinary research approach combining molecular biology, bioinformatics, and neuroscience.
His research primarily focuses on transcriptome analysis using advanced sequencing technologies. Key areas include investigating gene expression and alternative splicing patterns in healthy human brain structures and cell types, and how these are perturbed in neurological disorders such as multiple system atrophy, epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and chronic fatigue syndrome. He also explores cancer-specific transcriptome alterations, particularly circular and non-protein coding RNAs as potential biomarkers for diseases like endometrial cancer. His laboratory employs a combination of Illumina and nanopore DNA/RNA sequencing with custom bioinformatics pipelines.
Analysis of Dr. Janitz's recent publications reveals a strong emphasis on circular RNA biology across multiple disease contexts. His work demonstrates how circRNA-miRNA-mRNA networks contribute to neurological disorders and cancer pathogenesis. The research shows increasing integration of machine learning approaches with long-read sequencing technologies to enhance isoform discovery and transcriptome characterization.
- Member of Editorial Board, Genomics (since 2020)
- Member of Editorial Board, Non-coding RNA (since 2020)
- Guest Editor, Special Issue Neuroscience Letters (2020)
- Guest Scientist at Paul Flechsig Institute for Brain Research (since 2017)
- NSW Brain Banks Scientific Review Committee member (since 2017)
- Member of Editorial Board, Gene (since 2014)
Dr. Janitz actively mentors numerous graduate students and early-career researchers. His laboratory currently includes nine members comprising PhD candidates, honors students, and talented program students working on diverse projects related to transcriptome analysis in neurological disorders and cancer. His research has been supported through various institutional and collaborative funding mechanisms, though specific grant details are not provided in the source material. The laboratory maintains active collaborations with multiple international research groups focused on neurodegenerative diseases and cancer genomics.
His research team operates a specialized laboratory focused on advanced transcriptome analysis, with expertise in both wet-lab sequencing techniques and computational bioinformatics. The group has developed unique analytical pipelines combining in-house and publicly available tools to investigate non-protein coding transcriptomes, circular RNAs, and RNA modifications in both human and mouse models. Current projects particularly emphasize understanding circRNA-miRNA-mRNA networks in epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and gynecological malignancies, as well as exploring RNA post-transcriptional modifications using nanopore direct RNA sequencing.
