Speaker

Professor Kate Schroder heads the Inflammasome Laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland, as an NHMRC RD Wright Fellow. Kate is also the Director of the IMB Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research, the former Chair of the IMB Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2018-2020), and an editorial board member for Science Signaling, Cell Death and Disease, and Clinical and Translational Immunology. Kate’s graduate studies with Prof David Hume defined novel macrophage activation mechanisms, and her PhD was awarded in 2005. Her subsequent postdoctoral research with Profs Hume and Sweet identified surprising inter-species divergence in the inflammatory programs of human versus mouse macrophages (PNAS USA, 2012). As an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellow in Switzerland, Kate then trained with Prof Jürg Tschopp, a pioneer in the fields of inflammasome and cell death signalling pathways. Kate returned to Australia, and was appointed an IMB Lab Head in 2013. Kate’s laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms governing inflammasome activity and caspase activation, the cell biology of inflammation, cell death and host defence, and mechanisms of inflammasome inhibition by cellular pathways and new small molecule inhibitors. The Inflammasome Lab contributed to the development of small molecule inflammasome inhibitors that are currently in phase II clinical trials by the UQ start-up company, Inflazome Ltd, as novel anti-inflammatory therapeutics. Inflazome Ltd was recently acquired by Roche to progress these drug candidates to the clinic. Kate served on the Inflazome Scientific Advisory Board from 2016-2017, and serves as a consultant for biotech and big pharmaceutical companies.

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