The Jiang Group - Personalised Medicine and Autoimmunity

Identifying the genetic and cellular causes of immune mediated disease to personalise diagnosis and treatment.

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Associate Professor Simon Jiang
Group Leader
Dr Vicki Athanasopoulos
Senior Fellow

About

The Jiang Group utilises personalised medicine to understand the unique causes of disease in individuals and their families. Conventional management of immune disease assumes the causes of disease are similar in each individual and as a result many immune treatments are variably effective despite significant side effect profiles. Our laboratory identifies disease-causing genetic variants and investigates how these variants impair immune function leading to a diverse group of immune mediated illness including systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, myositis and inflammatory bowel disease. Leveraging this understanding of an individual’s genetic, molecular and cellular cause of disease to develop personalised treatments for each individual.

The Personalised Medicine and Autoimmunity laboratory leads a national personalised medicine program for physicians and patients with immune disease. Novel insights into the causes of disease have allowed us to start development of new therapies for treatment of autoimmune disease. Further, we have adapted this approach to understand the causes of endemic kidney and immune disease in Indigenous Australian communities with the aim of improving community health outcomes and continue to develop new technologies in personalised medicine including artificial intelligence and gene editing.

We welcome enquiries from potential Honours, PhD and Postdoctoral fellows contact us to discuss research opportunities in these domains. For more information, please contact Dr Vicki Athanasopoulos or Associate Professor Simon Jiang.

Publications

Projects

Our projects use genomics, cellular immunology, and transcriptomics to uncover the unique causes of chronic disease in Indigenous Australians, aiming to identify new treatment targets and improve community health outcomes.

Theme

Indigenous health, Inflammation

Student intake

Open for PhD students

Status

Potential

Our projects use advanced genomics, cellular immunology, and transcriptomics to investigate the unique causes of immune diseases in individuals, aiming to identify new treatment targets and improve patient outcomes.

Theme

Infectious diseases, Inflammation

Student intake

Open for PhD students

Status

Potential

Members

Leader

Group Leader
Associate Professor

Manager

Laboratory Manager
Technical Officer

Senior Fellow

Vicki Athanasopoulos

Research Fellow

Researcher

Morgan Downes

Postdoctoral Fellow

Tom Lea-Henry

Research Fellow

Maurice Stanley

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr Dulika Sumpathipala

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Researcher - The Jiang Group

Technician

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Research Technician - Scientific Programs Team

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Technician

Jiaxi Huang

Laboratory Technician

Thuy Xuan Nguyen Huynh

Technical Officer

Somasundhari Shanmuganandam

Technical Officer

Alamelu Vengatasalam

Laboratory Technician

Research support officer

Ann-Maree Hatch

Study Coordinator
Patient Liaison

Administrator

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Administrative Assistant

Student

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MPhil Student

Gemma Hart

PhD Student

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PhD Student
Indigenous Academic Associate

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PhD Student

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Honours student

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Honours student

News

Dr Vicki Athanasopoulos


A rare, mutated version of a protein called TNIP1 has been found to cause a chronic autoimmune disease that can cause blindness if left untreated, new ANU research has found.

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Elizabeth Webb Tom Lea-Henry JCSMR CHARM Rising Star

Dr Elizabeth Webb and Dr Tom Lea-Henry have been honoured with the inaugural CHARM Rising Star - Outstanding New Researcher Awards. This prestigious recognition was announced at the Canberra Health Annual Research Meeting (CHARM), held from 17 to 21 June 2024.

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Assosicate Professor Simon Jiang

In a world where healthcare can feel impersonal, ANU researchers are making medical diagnoses at a genetic level and tailoring treatments to individuals like never before.

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Location

Building 131, The John Curtin School of Medical Resraech