Researcher biography

Joanna held the role of the Operations manager of the Genome Innovation Hub until early in 2019. She was instrumental in starting up the hub and the first projects undertaken. Joanna holds a Master of Science (with a GPA of 9.0) from the University of Victoria, Canada and has over 20 years experience in biomedical research, in both national and international laboratories. She has published over 80 papers, 11 of them as first, or co-first author. Throughout her career she has held positions pioneering techniques at the forefront of technology to explore research questions in the field of molecular biology, with a recent focus on genomics. In 2010 she moved to Brisbane to join a team led by Professor Marcel Dinger at the Institute of Molecular Bioscience (IMB) to develop the CaptureSeq platform, enabling transcriptomic profiling of genes with low levels of expression, previously intractable to analysis by traditional RNA-Seq methodologies. Based on this experience she was recruited to the lab of Dr Ryan Taft at IMB in 2013, joining the first team in the world to exploit familial trio exome sequencing to obtain a clinical diagnosis for a family suffering from a rare unresolved monogenic disorder, finally enabling an end to their long diagnostic odyssey. In 2016 she joined the lab of Dr Cas Simons, continuing her work in the genomics clinical diagnostics space until being recruited as Operations manager by Professor Grant Montgomery to start up the Genome Innovation Hub at IMB in 2018.

Featured projects Duration
Quantitative transcriptome analysis (CAGE)
Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure)
2019
Assembly of complex genome (Macadamia) using single molecule sequencing
Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure)
2019
Precise genome editing
Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure)
2019