Janetta Culvenor studied Biochemistry at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia before work in Immunology for 12 months at the Radcliffe Infirmary , Oxford and in membrane biochemistry at the National Institute of Medical Research, London for 2 years. She completed PhD and post-doctoral studies with
the Malaria Research Group at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. She elucidated malaria parasite ultrastructure and localized several new potential vaccine candidates in the malaria-infected erythrocyte. In 1992 she joined the Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group based in the
Pathology Department at the University of Melbourne. She now leads a laboratory in the Centre for Neuroscience investigating the biochemistry and cell biology of key proteins associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Her current focus is study of the recently identified kinases involved in Parkinson’s
disease. A new joint initiative with Associate Professor Cheng has established that PINK1 is indeed a Ser/Thr kinase and we are now aiming to identify the PINK1 kinase substrates to investigate the role of this protein in mechanisms contributing to Parkinson’s pathogenesis.