Professor David A. Jans' General Profile

David Andrew Jans is originally from Melbourne. After graduating (BSc. Hons) from the University of Melbourne Microbiology Dept. in 1980, he joined the Dept. of Biochemistry at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) to carry out his Ph.D. studies with Graeme Cox and Frank Gibson on bacterial ATPase (completed 1984). He then took up a research scientist position at the Friedrich Miescher Institut in Basel (Switzerland), followed by a visiting fellowship at the Max Planck Institut für Biophysik in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), working in the area of phosphorylation and signal transduction in mammalian cells. In 1990, he became a Senior Scientist at the Institut für Medizinische Physik und Biophysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster (Germany), turning his focus to the use of microscopic techniques to investigate transport processes. He returned in 1993 to the JCSMR (Division of Biochem. & Mol. Biol.), initially as a Fellow, to establish the Nuclear Signalling Laboratory, with a strong focus on the processes of protein transport into the nucleus. He rose to Senior Fellow in 1998, Full Professor in 2000, and since 1998 also holds a conjoint teaching appointment (Associate Professor/Professor) at the James Cook University of North Queensland (Townsville, Australia). He has been at Monash since 2002, as an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow (SPRF), with a personal chair.

Prof. Jans has made a number of contributions to the general area of biological chemistry/molecular biology, and in particular how phosphorylation regulates the trafficking of viral, cancer regulatory and other cellular proteins to the nucleus in eukaryotic cells, have had a major impact over a number of years in the field, as evidenced by the many, many citations of his work (c. 2800 citations - he is listed as no. 1405 of the most cited scientists in the general area of biochemistry and biology, including 11 publications that have been cited over 100 times, with a H-index of 46). He has close to 200 primary research publications, and 40 peer-reviewed review articles), including publications in eminent journals such as J. Biol. Chem. (total of 30 papers), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (3), EMBO J. (3), J. Cell Biol. (3), Biochem. J. (13), FASEB J. (4), Oncogene (3), Cancer Research (2), Retrovirology (2), J. Virol. (8), Traffic (7), Mol. Cell. Biol. (2), Mol. Biol. of the Cell (3) and Nature Reviews Genetics. His international profile is further emphasized by the number of invitations to speak at international meetings (eg. ASCB, EMBO workshops) including 7 plenary talks (eg. 9th International Conference "Drug and Gene-based Therapeutics", Crete; Proteins Killing Tumor Cells Leiden, Holland), and awards (eg. IRPC (International Research Progress Council) Eminent Scientist of the Year, 1999, and Danny Thomas Lecture Series Visiting Professor, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, 2005), and the invitations to serve as journal editor (Biochem. J., Open AIDS J.), and Committee member of the International Photodynamic Association.