Peter Rathjen

Peter David Rathjen (born 1964 in Cambridge, England) is an Australian scientist and medical researcher internationally recognised in stem cell science. In 2006 he was appointed Dean of the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Science. Previously, he was Foundation Executive Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Adelaide.

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His research specialty has been embryonic development and particularly the development of stem cell therapies for replacement heart muscle, blood and nerve cells.

Biography

Born in the United Kingdom to a Lutheran family, his father had previously won a PhD scholarship to Cambridge University. They moved to South Australia when he was a child where he had his schooling at Blackwood High School in Adelaide. He studied Science at the University of Adelaide, majoring in biochemistry and genetics, and completing an honours degree.

He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where he continued research into certain plant pathogens called viroids and their association with RNA behaviour. This work later formed the foundations of gene shear technology which was commercialised by CSIRO. Further research involved the molecular genetics of yeast and the mechanism by which certain genes 'jumped out' the DNA and reinserted themselves into other parts of the chromosome. In his final PhD year he worked on the same mechanism in mammalian DNA.

Rathjen and his new wife Joy returned to South Australia, where he took a teaching role and in 1995 was appointed to the Chair of Biochemistry at Adelaide University and as head of the new ceDepartment of Molecular Biosciences in 2000. There he headed a research group looking at embryonic stem cells and protein signals which determine the final type of cells to be formed. This has also led to looking at commercial and therapeutic opportunities of the science.

In 2005 Professor Rathjen was the inaugural winner of the Premier of South Australia's Science Excellence Award in the category of Research Leadership. Rathjen is a founding member of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Biotechnology.

Professer Rathjen now lives in Melbourne with his wife Joy and two children, Sarah and Michael.

References

• "Prof Peter Rathjen", The University of Melbourne Voice, April-May 2006. 
• Professor Peter Rathjen Biochemist. Interview with Marian Heard. Australian Academy of Science (2001).