About
Paul graduated from James Cook University, Townsville Qld Australia with a BSc Honours in Chemistry with his focus on Natural products chemistry in marine plants and animals. This gave Paul a well-rounded exposure to using analytical instruments and techniques to elucidate unknown Secondary Metabolites.
After a short stint at the DPI in the National testing of agricultural products for Chemical residues and contaminants laboratory he moved to QIMR Berghofer to lead the Peptides and Oligonucleotide synthesis unit. This tenure led Paul to have his first contact with DNA sequencing and the joys of pouring 80cm poly-acrylamide slab gels. Paul brings 25+ years of laboratory management and analytical skills to the Analytical Facility.
With the expansion of QIMR Berghofer into three buildings Paul was offered the position of Analytical Facility Manager and to lead a diverse team to provide services to QIMR Berghofer researchers and research laboratories on the RBWH campus and wider science community. This expansion introduced Paul to Next Generation sequencing and the niche field of transcriptomics which uses RNA transcripts produced by a genotype to provide a link between the genome, the proteome, and the cellular phenotype.
The analytical facility evolved from one sanger sequencer to a short-read Illumina Nextseq 550 to a Nextseq 2000 and now the facility includes a long read ONT Promethion 24. This now gives the analytical facility unprecedented abilities to do a multitude of DNA and RNA sequencing experiments and analyses.