People

Dr Patricia Jusuf (Group Leader)
Patricia is a senior lecturer at the School of BioSciences since 2016. She received her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2006 and undertook postdoctoral training as a CJ Martin fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK. In 2011, she joined the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University to establish her research program focused on neural development and regeneration using the zebrafish eye model.

Tania Zhang (Research assistant)
Tania has been supporting ongoing work in two labs at the School of BioSciences since 2022. She keeps the labs running, takes care of our precious fish lines, and assists with administrative and experimental tasks. We are lucky to have her!

Lachlan Wallace (PhD candidate)
Lachlan is investigating the role of the Netrin family of proteins in wound healing and epithelial closure. He is co-supervised by Michael Murray and Patricia Jusuf, using both Drosophila and Zebrafish to explore the conserved function of Netrins across animals.
Lachlan completed his BSc (Genetics) at the University of Melbourne, and returned to begin his Master’s project in 2020.

Clancy Lawler (PhD candidate shared with the Frankenberg lab)

Aaron Lun Xu (MSc candidate)

Cassandra Penrose (Honours candidate)
Cassandra is investigating the gene-environment interplay that influences myopia onset and progression. She aims to quantify the effect of impaired gene expression on visual processing in zebrafish disease models, using functional, anatomical and physiological measures.

Sonia Deodhar (MSc candidate)

Callum Ward (MSc candidate)
Callum is investigating the gene networks activated during central nervous system regeneration. He uses zebrafish as a model organism to explore the Müller glia to progenitor transition. He completed his Bachelor of Biotechnology (Medical) at the University of Technology, Sydney, commencing his master’s project in 2023.

Rebecca Super (MSc candidate).

LAB ALUMNI

Postdocs
Alice Brandli completed her postdoctoral study in the lab and has been awarded a prestigious NHMRC early career fellowship starting in 2018 to work in Prof. Fletcher’s labs. Congratulations!

Paolin Rocio Caceres Velez joined the lab as a JN Peters fellow and set up a whole project on using Australian plant derived antioxidants to establish novel therapies to combat oxidative neural degeneration such as that seen in glaucoma. She has now changed to a successful career at Syngenta in Switzerland, but remains intellectually involved in this exciting research program.

PhD students
Jeremy Ng successfully completed his PhD in 2016.

Three students successfully completed their PhD in 2023. Congratulations, it’s a big sudden brain drain to the lab and they will be missed.
Aaron Krylov is exploring outside of academia, where his workethics and transferable skills will surely be an asset to anyone he works with.
Kellie Veen started a postdoc at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
Jiaheng Xie started a postdoc at Harvard University.

Masters students
Aaron Krylov completed his Masters in 2017 and is returning for a PhD in the lab after travelling through Europe in 2018.
Anthony Karamalakis completed his Masters in 2019 and has taken up a research assistant position in a zebrafish cancer laboratory.
Nicholas van de Garde has been successfully awarded a Masters project at the end of a very crazy 2020!
Lachlan Wallace completed his Masters project in 2021 and joined the lab to continue his exciting Netrin wound response project as a PhD student.
Sarah Kiloni and Julie Hercus finished their Masters project at the end of 2022, both contributing exciting data for the project program driven by Paolin Rocio Caceres Velez.

Honours students
Liana Goodings completed her Honours in 2014 and subsequently joined a lab to work as a research technician in London, UK.

Undergraduate Science Project students
Anastasia Lewis (2016)
Noor Tariq (2018)
Jia Jian Loh (2018)
Marija Dimitrievska (2020)

International Intern students
Luca Hoehne (2019)

LAB OUTINGS

2018 Pre-christmas celebration of another fun and successful year in the Jusuf lab.
Thanks to all the students and Stef for their hard work and dedication!

Group photo on Luca Hoehne’s last day in the lab following her excellent research presentation.
Luca joined us for an internship from the University of Luebeck and quickly became an outstanding lab member that will be missed! Good luck for your future career Luca!

Welcome to 2020 Lab Winery Lunch in the Yarra Valley!

Great venue to combine with 20th Australian and New Zealand Zebrafish meeting that I was co-organising the the Yarra Valley.