Professor Simon Conn

I have loved the challenges and opportunities of Molecular & Cellular Biology ever since I completed my Bachelor of Biotechnology (Hons) at Flinders University, AUSTRALIA in 2000. My Honours project studied mouse ES cell differentiation and the molecular basis of cell cycle checkpoint acquisition. My PhD and first postdoctoral position involved profiling single cell-specific transcriptomics and ionomics of live plant cells towards illuminating plant salinity tolerance and nutrient acquisition.

Since then, I have worked on mammalian cell biology, in my postdoctoral positions at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (France) and the Centre for Cancer Biology (AUSTRALIA). This is where I discovered how canonical RNAs are the exception, rather than the rule. Uncovering how an entire class of non-coding RNAs, called circular RNAs, are formed and regulated across cell differentiation lead to a seminal publication in the field. At Flinders University, I continue to research how these circular RNAs impact cancer (successive NHMRC Investigator Leadership 1 and 2 Grants). My laboratory has a particular strength and focus on brain cancer and am a proud founding member of the Australian Brain Alliance, EMCR Brain Science Network, which supports interdisciplinary research among Australian EMCRs.

I have published seminal papers on circular RNAs and other molecular biology-rich projects in eukarytotes in Cell(x2), Nature Biotechnology, Cancer Cell, Nature Plants, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Cancer, The EMBO Journal (x2), RNA, Genome Biology and other top-ranking journals (20 publications in the past 5 years), with an h-index of 31 at over 150 citations per article. I have also been awarded over $8M in peer-reviewed research grants in the past 5 years.

As a proud Aboriginal man (Peramangk mob of the Adelaide Hills), I am passioante about encouraging fellow First Nations students to engage with STEM. As one of the executive leads of the First Nations Researcher Collective here at Flinders, I contionue to support capacity building for indigenous researchers.