Brandon Wainwright Australasian RNA Biology and Biotechnology Association 2026 Conference

Brandon Wainwright

Professor Wainwright is an internationally recognised geneticist and highly experienced research leader whose career has spanned biomedical discovery, translation, and leadership across the Australian medical research sector. He is currently a Professor at The University of Queensland and Co-Director of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre, where he leads research focused on understanding the genetic pathways underlying medulloblastoma (a type of brain tumour that occurs predominantly in children) and other cancers. Professor Wainwright has made significant contributions to the understanding of the genetic pathway that causes most human cancers, including pioneering research that helped establish the role of the Hedgehog signalling pathway in cancer. He is skilled in molecular genetics, where he is using genetic approaches to dig through DNA and find the genes that cause disease. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at The University of Adelaide before undertaking postdoctoral research at Imperial College London (St Mary’s Hospital). He returned to Australia in 1990 to join UQ and subsequently held several senior leadership positions, including leading UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience until 2019. “Professor Wainwright brings an exceptional combination of scientific achievement, research leadership and deep knowledge of Australia’s medical research sector,” QIMR Berghofer Council Chair Professor Arun Sharma AM said.