German postdoctoral researcher and recipient of the prestigious Peter Hilton Research Fellowship in Ageing Dementia Dr Liviu-Gabriel Bodea has joined QBI.
Dr Bodea is an expert in neuroimmunology and will work at Professor Jürgen Götz’ laboratory at QBI’s Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research (CJCADR).
“We are very pleased to have Dr Bodea joining our team at the Queensland Brain Institute. His strong background in neuroimmunology and skill-set in this area will add significant value to our dementia program,” Professor Götz said.
The $500,000 Peter Hilton Research Fellowship was established in honour of the late Peter Hilton by his wife Robyn and will support Dr Bodea's research for five years.
As the Peter Hilton Research Fellow, Dr Bodea’s primary role will be to explore the interactions of the nervous and immune systems during memory and learning, and how these systems are disrupted in dementia.
He will specifically be using gene editing methods to assess the role of molecules that play a major part in dementia.
Dr Bodea has spent the past four years at the Department of Medical Neuroscience, the International Graduate School of Theoretical and Experimental Medicine (THEME) at the University of Bonn, Germany.
Dr Bodea recently co-authored a paper in the prestigious scientific journal, Cell, titled “Integrated systems approach identifies genetic nodes and networks in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease”.
Minister for Science and Innovation Ian Walker said QBI attracted many of the world’s best dementia researchers to Queensland and Dr Bodea’s move to Queensland to work at Professor Götz’ laboratory, highlighted QBI’s position as a global leader in dementia research.
“I’m delighted to see an early-career researcher of this calibre joining the team at QBI’s Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research,” he said.
“World-class research and translation require world-class talent.
“Along with the nine million dollars in dementia funding from the Newman Government to QBI last year, philanthropic funding like the Peter Hilton Fellowship is crucial in attracting and retaining the best and brightest researchers to Queensland.”
