Inaugural Bioinformatics Chair

Matthew Bellgard has been appointed to the inaugural Chair of Bioinformatics at Murdoch University.

Joining Murdoch University in 1994, Professor Bellgard is now internationally recognised for his expertise in comparative genomic analysis, integrated bioinformatics system development and computational biology.

Professor Bellgard spent time at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany and undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan.

In 2000, Professor Bellgard established the Centre for Bioinformatics and Biological Computing (CBBC), which has attracted $4.3 million in funding this year.

The CBBC is involved in the recently renewed CRC for Molecular Plant Breeding and Professor Bellgard is a member of an international consortium to annotate human full-length cDNAs.

The CBBC provides bioinformatics solutions for the plant breeding program in the Department of Agriculture WA and is establishing a bioinformatics enabling platform for the WA biomedical community.

Professor Bellgard is also the WA representative on the National Bioinformatics Expert Taskforce.