Professor David Lynn

Professor of Systems Immunology

College of Medicine and Public Health

place SA Health & Medical Research Institute
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia

Since 2014, David is an European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Australia Group Leader in the Infection and Immunity Theme at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). He also holds a joint faculty appointment as Associate Professor at the College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders University. David heads a multi-disciplinary group that is equally divided between bioinformatics and experimental systems biology. On the wet-lab side, his group employs in vitro and in vivo experimental and clincial models coupled with systems biology approaches to investigate the interplay between the microbiome, vaccines and the immune system. On the bioinformatics side, his group leads the development of InnateDB.com, an internationally recognised systems biology platform for innate immunity networks and he also leads the computational biology aspects of €12 million European Commission funded project called PRIMES, which is investigating how to model and subsequently therapeutically target protein interaction networks in cancer.

His Group is currently supported by; EMBL Australia; The NHMRC; Cancer Australia and The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation. He has published ~70 papers in journals including Cell Host & Microbe, Cell Systems, Bioinformatics, Molecular Systems Biology, and Science and his publications have received more than 5000 citations. He has given invited talks on 6 continents.

Qualifications

2019 - Present: Professor, College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.

2019 - Present: Director, Computational & Systems Biology Program, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

2014 - Present: EMBL Australia Group Leader, Infection & Immunity Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), Adelaide, South Australia.

2014 - 2018: Associate Professor, College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.

2009 - 2014: Vision Appointment in Computational Biology. Group Leader, Systems Biology & Immunology Group, Teagasc Animal & Bioscience Research Department, Grange, Dunsany, Co. Meath, Ireland.

2012 - 2013: Adjunct Lecturer, School of Biochemistry & Immunology, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

2007 - 2009: Postdoctoral Research Associate, F.S.L. Brinkman Lab., Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

2007 - 2009: Honorary Research Associate, R.E.W. Hancock Lab., The Centre for Microbial Diseases & Immunity Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

2004 - 2006: Postdoctoral Fellow, D.G. Bradley Lab., Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

2002 - 2003: Postgraduate Certificate in Research Methods (Statistics), Department of Statistics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.

2001 - 2004: Ph.D. (Bioinformatics & Innate Immunology), C. O’Farrelly Lab., Department of Medicine, University College Dublin & The Education & Research Centre, St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin 4, Ireland.

2000 - 2001: Research M.Sc. Biology (Bioinformatics), D.A. Hickey Lab., Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

1996 - 2000: B.A. Natural Sciences - Moderatorship in Genetics, Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Honours, awards and grants

2019-2021 NHMRC Project Grant (APP1156415). “How does the microbiota modulate vaccine responses in human infants: A systems vaccinology approach.”($858,033). Role: CIA.

2019-2023 EMBL Australia Group Leader Funding (SAHMRI/Flinders University). “Emergent Properties of Complex Systems”. Role: CIA.

2019-2019 Flinders University NHMRC Near Miss Funding Scheme. “Characterising the mechanisms through which early-life dysbiosis modulates B and T cell responses to vaccination.” ($25,000). Role: CIA.

2018 Australian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Society Mid-Career Researcher Award.

2018 Australian Cancer Research Foundation. “ACRF Centre for Integrated Cancer Systems Biology.” ($2.5 million). Role: CI Leading computational & systems biology aspects.

2018-2018 The Flinders Foundation Health Seed Research Grant. “The role of the gut microbiota in the efficacy and toxicity of agonistic antibody cancer immunotherapies”($22,890). Role: CIA.

2018-2021 Medical Research Future Fund (APP1152268). “Using metagenomics and the Registry of Ageing South Australians to understand carriage and transmission of antimicrobial resistance in the elderly”. ($1,414,049.50). Role: CIG.

2018-2020 Cancer Australia Project Grant (APP1138766). "Novel co-extinction strategies for treatment of prostate cancer". ($596,409). Role: CIB.

2016-2018 NHMRC Project Grant (APP1098429). "The impact of the neonatal gut microbiome on specific and nonspecific vaccine responses". ($661,495.50). Role: CIA.

2016-2018 NHMRC Project Grant (APP1104281). "Blood serum microRNA biomarkers for oesophageal cancer". ($495,432.60). Role: CID.

2015-2017 The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation. "Blood serum microRNA biomarkers for detection of oropharyngeal cancer". ($372,375). Role: CID.

2014-2016 Australian Hotels Association (SA) - Hotel Care Community Projects. Funding for High Performance Computing. ($150,000).

2014-2019 EMBL Australia Group Leader FundingRole: PI

2014-2014 NC3Rs (UK) CRACK IT Challenge 16. Virtual Infectious Disease Research. Phase I award (£84,561). “Modelling of the molecular interactions between host and pathogen” Role: Co-PI.

2011-2016 European Commission FP7-HEALTH-2011Project# 278568. "PRIMES: Protein interaction machines in oncogenic EGF receptor signalling." (Total award €11,999,640) Role: Co-PI.

Supervisory interests
Bioinformatics
Cancer
Computational biology
Genomics
Immunisation
Immunology
Immunomodulation
Infection and immunity
Innate immunity
Micriobial ecology
Microbiology
Network biology
Vaccines
Higher degree by research supervision
Current
Principal supervisor: Immunology (1), Systems biology (1)
Completion
Principal supervisor: Bioinformatics (Teagasc/Simon Fraser University) (1), Genetics/Genomics (Teagasc/University College Dublin) (1), Bioinformatics (Teagasc) (1), Infectious Disease Genomics (Teagasc/Trinity College Dublin) (1), Systems and computational biology (1)
Expert for media contact
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Data mining
Immunology
Infection/Infectious diseases
Microbiology
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