Associate Professor Brian Billups- PhD, Associate Director, Education, JCSMR

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Title: The Glutamate Balancing Act: Sustaining Synaptic Signalling During Intense Brain Activity

About Brian:

Associate Professor Brian Billups is a cellular neuroscientist at JCSMR, where he also serves as Associate Director (Education). He completed a BSc (Hons) and PhD in Physiology at University College London, together with an MSc in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. Following postdoctoral research at the University of Utah and the University of Leicester, he held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and was a Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge before joining ANU in 2014.

His research explores how neurons and glial cells sustain excitatory neurotransmission, with a particular focus on amino-acid transport, synaptic metabolism, and the recycling and replenishment of the neurotransmitters. His laboratory combines electrophysiology and fluorescent imaging with direct recordings from identified neurons. His work has revealed how mitochondria regulate calcium within presynaptic terminals, demonstrated the rapid release of glutamine from perisynaptic astrocytes, and established the importance and regulation of presynaptic glutamine transport. Most recently, his research identified NTT4/SLC6A17 as the presynaptic glutamine transporter that maintains glutamate supply at excitatory synapses, providing new insight into neuronal signalling during brain seizures.

He has authored research publications in leading journals, including Nature, The Journal of Neuroscience, The Journal of Physiology, Glia and Progress in Neurobiology. His honours include a Human Frontiers Long-Term Fellowship and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. He has served on the Royal Society Research Grants Board and the editorial boards of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and Open Biology. At ANU, he provides leadership across undergraduate and postgraduate neuroscience education and has a strong record of research training and supervision.