Our Deputy Directors

Professor Ramm is an internationally recognised discovery scientist researching the pathobiological basis of hepatic fibrosis (liver scarring) and chronic liver disease, particularly in inherited conditions such as hereditary haemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis-associated liver disease in children, as well as in conditions that lead to liver cancer.

His research is also focused on the clinical translation of this mechanistic research including the early detection of patients at risk of serious liver disease complications, better monitoring of disease progression, and development of new therapeutics to treat both liver inflammation and hepatic fibrosis.

Professor Ramm identified a role for liver myofibroblast precursors, hepatic stellate cells, as the cellular source for pathological collagen in a number of intractable chronic liver diseases and discovered the cellular mechanisms that cause severe liver inflammation and hepatic fibrogenesis, which leads to cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver failure if untreated. These observations have significantly advanced the field and provided the basis for the development of highly novel, innovative therapeutic approaches to treat chronic liver disease.

He is a foundation Fellow of both the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the Gastroenterological Society of Australia, in recognition of ‘significant contribution to the knowledge and/or practice of liver and biliary diseases and who are considered leaders in their field’.

Professor Ramm was awarded the Gastroenterological Society of Australia’s Distinguished Research Prize for 2020 and in 2023, he was awarded the Ralph Doherty QIMR Berghofer Prize ‘for outstanding achievement and leadership in medical research’.

A medical epidemiologist and public health physician with a focus on cancer control, he has pursued two parallel but complementary paths, focusing on discovering how environmental and genetic factors interact to cause cancer on the one hand, and then applying this knowledge to the prevention and control of disease on the other.

Whiteman’s early research built upon emerging theories for melanoma that sought to explain how these cancers are caused. His ‘divergent pathway model’ for melanoma development spurred international research in epidemiology, genomics & pathology. The divergent pathway model underpins the current WHO Classification of Melanoma and informs melanoma control policies from WHO/IARC and 10 countries. Whiteman’s later work on the preventive effects of sunscreen at molecular and population levels was used by 18 leading stakeholder agencies in Australia & New Zealand to develop the Consensus Statement on Sunscreen (2019), which in turn was adopted by the 2020 Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines for Keratinocyte Carcinoma.

In 2010, Professor Whiteman launched the QSkin Study, the world’s largest prospective study of skin cancer with almost 44,000 participants. This cohort has been immensely productive, delivering new knowledge on the causes and burden of basal and squamous cell carcinomas (BCC and SCC) and melanoma associated with phenotypic, lifestyle, clinical, and environmental factors. More recently, data from the QSkin Study led to the development of risk calculators to estimate a person’s future risks of SCC/BCC and melanoma, which have had global uptake.

In addition to skin cancer, Whiteman has also led internationally recognised studies of oesophageal cancer, and its premalignant precursor, Barrett’s oesophagus.

In 2019, Professor Whiteman was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day Honours List.

Whiteman served as Acting Director of the Institute at the start of 2020 during the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Professor Greg Anderson’s major research interests are in understanding the molecular basis of iron homeostasis and diseases associated with disturbances in iron metabolism. In addition, he has worked extensively on the therapeutic applications of nanotechnology, particularly for the treatment of cancer.

Anderson’s Iron Metabolism Laboratory focused on understanding how the essential element iron is transported into and out of cells and how disruption of these processes can lead to human diseases such as haemochromatosis. The lab had a broad approach from basic molecular mechanisms to clinical applications, and has driven many important advances in this field.

He served as President of the International BioIron Society from 2013-2015.

Professor Anderson was Deputy Director at the time the new building, the 15-floor Central building linking the Bancroft Centre and the Clive Berghofer Cancer Research Centre was opened in late 2012 and the period of rapid growth once the new facility was completed.

The research and findings of Professor Green have been a game changer for public health. Her world-first research based on a 20-year follow-up study of over 1,000 residents of Nambour, Queensland established that daily sunscreen use can prevent squamous cell carcinoma of the skin and melanoma.

Green also headed several other major clinical and population-based studies including an early investigation of the epidemiology of ovarian cancer in Australian women; a follow-up collaborative studies of melanoma recurrence and survival of patients with early invasive melanoma; and studies of causes and prevention of skin cancers in organ transplant patients in Queensland because of their greatly increased risk of these cancers. In the course of these studies, Green trained and mentored a generation of epidemiologists and clinician scientists at the Institute.

Professor Green was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2004 for service to medical research and to public health including improved Indigenous health, and for leadership in the wider scientific community.  

In 2013, Professor Green was named Queensland Australian of the year 2013 in recognition of her skin cancer research. In 2014, she was declared Australia’s Most Influential Woman by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac, and was named a Queensland Great, one of the most prestigious accolades the State can bestow, recognizing people who’ve made a lasting, positive difference to Queensland.

 In 2020, Professor Green was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and in 2021, she was named by The Australian as Australia’s field leader in dermatology research.

Professor Green served as Acting Director of the Institute in 2010.

One of the Institute’s leading scientists, Professor Allan J Saul was appointed as Deputy Director in February 1999.

Joining the Institute in 1979, he undertook post-doctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1985/1986, before returning to QIMR to establish the Malaria Biology Laboratory at a time when there were about 800 million cases of malaria worldwide a year.

Saul’s malaria epidemiology program was conducted in collaboration with the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Manila, the Philippines as well as other malaria field work with associates in China, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. 

Professor Saul left the Institute to move to the NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA to continue his research towards the development of a malaria vaccine, strengthening the great scientific collaborative bonds between the NIH and QIMR.

Australian born, Professor Kay Ellem worked in the United States for 20 years and had a distinguished background in cancer cell biology and pathology in the USA before joining QIMR as the Chairman of the Cancer and Cell Biology Section, several years before he was appointed as Deputy Director of the Institute.

Ellem’s interests lay in DNA function and metabolism and the regulation of cell growth and differentiation in various cell states including malignancy. He conducted pioneering work on the development of a vaccine against the highly malignant tumour melanoma.

As well as his enormous contribution to the Institute’s research output, Ellem has also been praised for his contribution to the Institute’s esprit de corps.

In June 2006, Professor Kay Ellem was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his lifetime of achievement in cancer research.

Professor Ellem served as Acting Director from 1989–1990.

Dr John H. Pope joined the staff as a Cadet in 1949, and took B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees while working at the Institute. He received his training in research as assistant to Dr Edward Holbrook Derrick in work on various agents; from 1959 he became interested in virus-induced leukaemia and lymphoma. Dr Pope and his group made several important contributions to the study of Burkitt lymphoma and Epstein Barr virus.

He spent a year in 1963-1964 in the United States at the National Institutes of Health on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for study in the field of Virology.

After 38 years at the Institute, Dr Pope resigned to assume the position of Director of the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Laboratories at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane to research projects concerning childhood infections and the search of new viruses in diseases where an infectious agent was suspected.

Joining the institute in the early 1950s, after completing his medical studies and internship, Professor Doherty moved to the Institute's research station at Innisfail in 1953. He conducted research into arboviral diseases, and led the discovery of Ross River virus in 1963, which caused epidemic polyarthritis.

Doherty was responsible for QIMR’s first outreach into southeast Asia.

In his 24 years at the Institute Dr Doherty made an enormous contribution to the knowledge of arthropod-borne viruses in Australia.

In 1989, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

Professor Doherty served as Director of the Institute from 1966-1978 and he continued his involvement with QIMR Berghofer over the subsequent decades.

The Ralph Doherty QIMR Berghofer Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Medical Research is awarded annually in his honour.

Dr Derrick's achievements in the field of medical research were well known far beyond Queensland, and led to significant medical benefits for Queenslanders, including discovering the cause of Q fever.

His work, vision, and untiring zeal were prime factors in the establishment of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in 1945 and he is referred to as its Founding Father.

Derrick acted as Deputy Director from 17 January, 1946 and was appointed as the Institute’s first Deputy Director on 27 March, 1947.

A medical practitioner and pathologist, Derrick’s research focused on the epidemiology of diseases including Q fever, dengue fever, scrub typhus, and asthma in children in Brisbane with special interest in how climate affected the illness.

He contributed much more by the encouragement and guidance he gave to generations of younger scientists at QIMR and elsewhere.

Dr Derrick served as Director of the Institute from 1961-1966.