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Senior Research Fellow Telephone: +61 3 9902 9322 |
Career:
Dr Mathias completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours at Melbourne University, and received his PhD in 2009. Under the supervision of Prof Richard Simpson, he studied epithelial-mesenchymal transition as a process facilitating cancer metastasis.
In 2012, he was awarded a NHMRC CJ Martin Early Career Fellowship for Postdoctoral studies at Princeton University. In the laboratory of Assoc. Prof Ileana Cristea, he investigated the ability of host sirtuin (SIRT) proteins to restrict Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). It was there Dr Mathias discovered mitochondrial SIRT4 as the first mammalian cellular lipoamidase, with its enzymatic activity inhibiting pyruvate dehydrogenase (Cell, 2014).
Dr Mathias returned to the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science in late 2014, for the Australian-based component of his fellowship. In 2015, he was awarded a NHMRC Project Grant as a New Investigator to investigate the viral pathogenesis of HCMV infection. In 2016, Dr Mathias moved to Monash University, in a joint appointment between the Department of Microbiology, and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He heads the ‘Viral pathogenesis and host cellular defense' research group.
Research Interests:
Research in the laboratory uses a hybrid multidisciplinary approach integrating virology, molecular biology, microscopy, proteomics, and bioinformatics to investigate the molecular mechanisms used by viruses to replicate and assemble infectious virions.
HCMV is a β-herpesvirus that infects over 60% of the adult population. HCMV becomes latent after a primary infection, and can periodically re-activate for reasons still unknown. HCMV is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in immuno-compromised individuals such as organ transplant recipients. However, the largest burden of disease occurs from intrauterine HCMV transmission during pregnancy. This occurs in at least 1% of pregnancies worldwide, and can cause permanent hearing loss, vision impairment, and mental retardation. There is no vaccine currently available, and discovery of new antivirals is urgently required. Importantly, the process by which infectious virus is packaged and released is not well understood, and this presents a novel molecular loci to develop potential antiviral therapeutics.
Research in the lab is dedicated towards defining:
- · Critical host-viral protein interactions
- · Viral proteins mediating host organelle remodelling
- · Hijacking of host molecular pathways involved in virion egress
Research Group
