James Cook University, Australia
Prof. Juergen Reichardt, is a human molecular biologist, geneticist and biochemist with epidemiologic interests. In general terms, he aims to understand how the genome – in conjunction with the environment – produces the multitude of human phenotypes. To this end, he has chosen a “candidate gene” approach for selected phenotypes of interest. These choices were dictated by his training as a biochemist, molecular biologist and geneticist with a focus on metabolic pathways and common diseases.
Juergen has extensive molecular biology and molecular epidemiologic experience in the area of identification and characterization of disease-causing mutations in metabolic genes. Most relevant here are his efforts on galactosemia in the past and also on the SRD5A2 gene.
Juergen academic training involved working with an outstanding, Nobel-prize winning biochemist, Paul Berg, for his PhD at Stanford and a ground-breaking, world-class human geneticist, Savio Woo, during his postdoctoral training also in the USA. Throughout those early years, he was the first to clone the gene responsible for human galactosemia, a Mendelian disorder, as well as being the first to identify and characterize mutations that cause this disorder.
Juergen then joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine (USA) where he rose through the ranks from Assistant to Associate Professor. There he continued his investigations into galactose metabolism by cloning and characterizing the gene encoding UDP-galactose 4’ epimerase (GALE), the cause of human epimerase-deficiency galactosemia. In fact, he and his lab were responsible for cloning and characterizing two of the three genes involved in the human Leloir pathway of galactose metabolism and his lab identified galactosemia mutations in all three galactose metabolic genes.
Juergen then turned his interest to common diseases, especially prostate cancer. He has made significant contributions to the biochemical, genetic, epidemiologic and molecular analysis of androgen metabolism and prostate cancer over the past two decades.
Juergen arrived as the foundation Plunkett Chair of Molecular Biology (Medicine) at the University of Sydney in Australia in 2005 and was also the Head of the School of Pharmacy and Molecular Sciences at James Cook University. Furthermore, he served as the Associate Dean Research for the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Sciences at James Cook University
Juergen has worked on other cancers, incl. brain and ovarian. Furthermore, he has also recently published on policy, politics, administration and science. Juergen also served as the ViceChancellor, Research and Innovation at YachayTech University, the first research-intensive university in Ecuador, and as interim Dean.
Juergen has been recognized internationally: he has coauthored almost 200 peer—reviewed publications, incl. in such prestigious journals as The Lancet, Nature, PNAS, Science, TiBS, TiC and TiG. Furthermore, he has held continuous grant funding since 1992 from various agencies. Juergen has in fact been funded uninterrupted by the NIH from 1994-2010. He was also funded externally in Australia and Ecuador.
Juergen currently serves on a dozen editorial boards, incl. as Executive Associate Editor of Human Genomics. He also has extensive experience in reviewing manuscripts and grant applications, incl. for the ARC and the NHMRC in Australia, the Research Grants Council in Hong Kong, the MRC in the UK, the NMRC in Singapore and the DoD, NIH and VA along with many others in the USA.