Dr Jackie Wilce - Career

I completed a B. Sc (Hons) degree at Monash University, specialising in novel peptide chemistries at honours level. In 1994 I graduated with a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the Victorian College of Pharmacy in the field of NMR structural and dynamics studies of peptides and proteins. I then took up a position at Queensland University in the Centre for Drug Design and Development with Professor David Craik, synthesising proteins using peptide and novel linkage chemistries. I then spent several years at the University of Sydney with Professor Glenn King, extending my expertise to include molecular biological and protein expression and purification techniques as well as 3D heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy and analytical ultracentrifugation. Here I began to develop an interest in structural and dynamic studies of novel cancer targets as well as the use of peptides for transporting bioactive compounds across cell walls. I also embarked on structural studies of a protein:DNA complex involved in replication fork arrest for which I was awarded an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 1999 I established my own laboratory as a joint member of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the Department at the University of Western Australia, where I extended my research into the field of structural and dynamic studies of protein-RNA interactions involved in mRNA stabilization in collaboration with partner, A/Prof Matthew Wilce. In 2001 I was awarded an ARC Fellowship to pursue molecular interactions studies, and have added surface plasmon resonance and isothermal titration calorimetry to the repertoire of biophysical techniques that underpins the work. In 2005 I moved with Matthew Wilce to Monash University to establish labs in the dynamic Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I was appointed as a Senior lecturer n 2007. Here I look forward to developing my research interests and forging new collaborative efforts.