Katharina Gaus

External video

Katharina Gaus - Extreme Close-up on Immunity, AboutUNSW

Katharina Gaus is an Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She is currently an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow^[3] and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.^[4] Gaus uses new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes^[5][6][7] to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions".^[8] A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases.^[9][10] Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.^[8]

Education

Gaus studied physics and mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a MPhil (1996) and PhD (1999) from the Institute of Biotechnology^[11] at the University of Cambridge.^[1] While there she created a biosensor to detect protein-protein interactions and a ligand library, useful as a diagnostic tool.^[11]

Career

Following her studies at the University of Cambridge, Katharina joined the Cell Biology Group at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, led by Roger Dean and Wendy Jessup.^[12] Around 2002, she moved with Wendy Jessup's group to the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.^[11]

She has received several fellowships, spending three months of 2001 at the University of Urbana-Champagne, working with Enrico Gratton before returning to Australia to take up an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship.^[13] In 2005 Gaus was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and spent six months at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany,^[13] working in the laboratory of Kai Simons.^[12]

As of 2005, Gaus founded the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.^[12][11] As of 2009 she became a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia.^[12]

Gaus is a member of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, founded in 2011, which is based at the University of New South Wales.^[14] She is also Deputy Director and a Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging.^[15]

Katharina Gaus is active in encouraging girls to enter scientific fields.^[16]

Awards

• 2013, Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship – Biomedical 2013 (NHMRC Research Excellence Award)^[8][3]
• 2013, NSW Science and Engineering Award for Excellence in Biological Sciences,^[2] from the New South Wales Government^[17]
• 2012 Gottschalk Medal for outstanding research in the medical sciences, from the Australian Academy of Science^[5]
• 2010, Young Investigator Award from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology^[3][11]
• 2005, Tall Poppy Award, encouraging young Australian scientists^[18]

References

External links

• Katharina Gaus page at University of New South Wales
• Cellular Membrane Biology Lab page at University of New South Wales