Cryptic Enzymes and Moonlighting Proteins

Helen Irving is a Professor in Biomedical Sciences and is a member of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS) in Melbourne, Australia. Helen's current research centers on understanding inflammatory signals at the molecular level to develop new and improved approaches to managing inflammatory conditions. Helen obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from The University of Melbourne and conducted post-doctoral work at Vanderbilt University (USA) and The University of Kentucky (USA) before returning to Australia to take up an ARC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at La Trobe University. For most of her career, she has been a teaching and research academic based at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University. Helen moved to the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS) at La Trobe University in 2017.

Dr. Chris Gehring is based at the Università degli Studi di Perugia UNIPG, in the Department of Chemistry, Biology & Biotechnology. His research focuses on plant signalling peptides, with a focus on various peptide signalling molecules in development, defense, and homeostasis. He has published widely in such peer reviewed journals as Nature, Molecular Plant, Trends in Genetics, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Dr. Aloysius Wong earned a PhD in Bioscience from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, as well as a MA in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge, UK. In past positions, he has served as a post-doctoral researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Dr. Wong seeks to understand, from a molecular perspective, how plants, despite being sessile and immobile, can efficiently perceive environmental (biotic and abiotic) signals and launch short- and long-term biological responses that enable them to survive in environments considered hostile to plants. Dr. Wong has published widely in peer reviewed journals.