Derek Richard

A/Prof Richard is an expert on DNA stability and repair pathways. Of note, he discovered the human SSB family of proteins and characterised their critical role in maintaining genetic stability. This work led to two patent applications and the commercialization of technology he developed. In the past 5 years, he has published 28 manuscripts and been invited to present his work at 18 international and 8 national conferences/seminars/symposia. Dr Richard has published in Nature, Genes and Development, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Pathology, Nucleic Acids Research and Journal of Biological Chemistry. He has received over $2.2M in research funding in the past 5 years.

A/Prof Richard obtained his PhD in microbial biochemistry from the University of Dundee (Scotland) in 1999. His research interest then moved from the bacterial domain of life to the archaea where he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof Malcolm White studying archaeal DNA repair systems. A/Prof Richard moved to Queensland in 2004 to join the team of Prof Kum Kum Khanna at QIMR before moving his research team to the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at QUT in Feb 2011. Since moving to Queensland he has licensed technologies to and works as a consultant for Cancer Therapeutics. His latest research has led to the initiation of a clinical trial sponsored by Cancer Research UK.

• Richard DJ, Bolderson E, Cubeddu L, Wadsworth RI, Savage K, Sharma GG, Nicolette ML, Tsvetanov S, McIlwraith MJ, Pandita RK, Takeda S, Hay RT, Gautier J, West SC, Paull TT, Pandita TK, White MF, and Khanna KK.  Single-stranded DNA-binding protein hSSB1 is critical for genomic stability. Nature, May 2008; 453(7195): 677-81. (Impact factor 34.5)
• Richard DJ, Schumacher V, Royer-Pokora B, and Roberts SGE.  Par4 is a coactivator for a splice isoform-specific transcriptional activation domain in WT1. Genes & Dev., Feb 2001; 15: 328.
• Wykes  M, Richard D J, Jason KG, Manderson A, Liu XQ, Brown D L. Rodent blood-stage Plasmodium survive in dendritic cells that infect naive mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2011; 108(27):11205-11210
• Richard DJ, Savage K, Bolderson E, Cubeddu L, So S, Ghita M, Chen DJ, White MF, Richard K, Prise KM, Schettino G, and Khanna KK.  hSSB1 rapidly binds at the sites of DNA double-strand breaks and is required for the efficient recruitment of the MRN complex. Nucleic Acids Res., Mar 2011; 39: 1692 - 1702.
• Richard DJ, Cubeddu L, Urquhart AJ, Bain A, Bolderson E, Menon D, White MF, and Khanna KK.  hSSB1 interacts directly with the MRN complex stimulating its recruitment to DNA double-strand breaks and its endo-nuclease activity. Nucleic Acids Res., May 2011; 39: 3643 - 3651.

• Aaron Urquhart
• Brad Hoad
• Vincent Leong
• Jacob Tickner
• Nicholas Ashton
• Joshua Burgess

• Prof Dean Fennell
• Prof Ken O'Byrne
• Prof Malcolm White
• Prof Kevin Price
• Dr Catherine Botting
• Dr Liza Cubeddu
• Dr Kienan Savage
• Dr Giuseppe Schettino