Professor Jade Forwood

Professor Jade Forwood completed a BBiomedSc. (Hons I) at James Cook University and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (Australian National University). Jade was awarded a University Medal in 1998 and the Frank Fenner Medal in 2002 for most outstanding PhD thesis. Since completing a PhD, Jade undertook postdoctoral research in industry (Bresagen Ltd., Adelaide University), and under an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship, conducted research at the Department of Structural Studies in Cambridge for two years, followed by an additional two years at the University of Queensland. In 2007, Jade joined the School of Biomedical Sciences at Charles Sturt University to coordinate and lecture in Biochemistry.

Research

• Professor Forwood's research interests are medical biochemistry, molecular biology and pharmacology. Projects include sex determination and mutations with SRY that lead to genetic sex reversal in humans, nucleocytoplasmic transport of proteins involved in gene regulation, non-viral gene-therapy, and techniques to characterise protein-protein interactions including  x-ray crystallography. Jade conducted research on proteins responsible for replicating the Dengue virus genome, proteins involved in gene regulation and their application for gene therapy, neuralisation of stem cells, and crystallographic structure determination of proteins involved in colon cancer, development, macrophage activation, lipid metabolism, and the nucleocytoplasmic transport process. This work has been published in a number of journals including Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Plant Cell, J Biol Chem, Proteins and Biochemistry and a number of book chapters.

Teaching

• Undergraduate: Biochemistry, Protein Biochemistry

Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Kirkby B, Roman N, Kobe B, Kellie S, Forwood JK. Functional and Structural Properties of Mammalian Acyl-Coenzyme A Thioesterases. Prog in Lipid Research. In press. Impact Factor = 11.23; ARC A

Forwood JK, Thakur AS, Guncar G, Marfori M, Mouradov D, Meng W, Robinson J, Huber T, Kellie S, Martin JL, Hume DA, Kobe B. Structural basis for recruitment of tandem hotdog domains in acyl-CoA thioesterase 7 and its role in inflammation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007;104(25):10382-10387. Impact Factor = 10.23; ARC A*

Wang CA, Guncar G, Forwood JK, Teh T, Catanzariti A, Schirra H, Anderson PA, Ellis JG, Dodds PN, Kobe B. Crystal structures of flax rust avirulence proteins AvrL567-A and AvrL567–D reveal the structural basis for flax disease resistance specificity. Plant Cell 2007;19(9):2898-2912. Impact Factor = 9.8; ARC A*

Harley VR, Layfield S, Mitchell CL, Forwood JK, John AP, Briggs LJ, McDowall SG, Jans DA. Defective importin beta recognition and nuclear import of the sex-determining factor SRY are associated with XY sex-reversing mutations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2003;100(12):7045-7050. Impact Factor = 10.23; ARC A*

Forwood JK, Harley V, Jans DA. The C-terminal nuclear localization signal of the sex-determining region Y (SRY) high mobility group domain mediates nuclear import through importin beta 1. J Biol Chem 2001;276(49):46575-46582. Impact Factor = 7.3; ARC A*