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AHMRN Journal Club
AHMRN Journal Club
Call for Presenters – Come for the science. Stay for the story.
🔬 Microbiome Journal Club — Behind the Paper
We’re building a less traditional journal club where researchers share what really happened along the way:
Experiments that didn’t make the final cut
Troubleshooting steps & technical challenges
Methodological decisions, pivots & trade‑offs
Lessons learned to help others avoid common pitfalls
Serendipitous findings & surprising results
Who should attend:
Microbiome researchers of all levels, method developers, data scientists, and anyone who values open, practice-first science.
Format:
15–20 min presentation + 10–15 min discussion focused on:
What aspects were most compelling?
What challenges have others faced in similar experiments?
How could this methodology be applied or extended?
What would you have done differently?
If you’re into microbiome methods, open science, and practical know‑how, this is for you.
👉 Join us and be part of a candid, supportive community.
Want to join or present? -
Upcoming Journal Club
Upcoming Journal Club
AHMRN Journal Club March 2026
AHMRN Journal Club March 2026
We’re excited to host Dr Laurence Luu, who will be presenting and unpacking his paper:
“Cervicovaginal microbiome composition and absolute quantity are associated with pelvic inflammatory disease.”
We’ll go beyond the manuscript: experiments that didn’t make the cut, troubleshooting, methodological pivots, lessons learned, and surprising findings—followed by a candid discussion on what was most compelling, shared challenges, how to apply/extend the methods, and what we’d do differently.
All welcome: Researchers, students, and anyone curious about microbiome science!
Time: March 5, 2026, 12:00 PM ACST
WA: 10:30am | NT/SA: 12:00pm | NSW/QLD/TAS/VIC: 12:30pm
Bio:
Dr. Laurence Luu is an NHMRC EL1 Investigator Fellow and Scientia Lecturer at UNSW, where he leads the Bacterial Colonisation Factor Lab, studying how pathogens cause disease using multi‑omics and molecular biology. He completed his PhD on Bordetella pertussis evolution and later researched host–microbiome interactions in gastrointestinal cancers and inflammatory bowel disease, with key first‑author papers in Gut and Nature Communications. After a Chancellor’s Research Fellowship at UTS investigating chlamydia and the microbiome in pelvic inflammatory disease, he returned to UNSW in 2025 to develop future‑proof vaccines targeting essential bacterial colonisation factors.
Past Journal Clubs
Past Journal Clubs
Bethany Masson
Bethany Masson
Thu 20 November 2025
"Depletion of the paternal gut microbiome alters sperm small RNAs and impacts offspring physiology and behavior in mice."
Bethany is a PhD candidate at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, investigating the role of the paternal gut microbiota in epigenetic inheritance.
Shreeya Raich
Shreeya Raich
Thu 16 October 2025
"Bacterial taxonomic and functional changes following oral lyophilized donor fecal microbiota transplantation in patients with ulcerative colitis."
Ms Shreeya Raich is a PhD candidate in the Host-Microbiome Interactions group in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Her research focuses on exploring live microbial therapeutic agents for ulcerative colitis.
Dr Bree Tillet
Dr Bree Tillet
Thu 11 September 2025
"SCFA biotherapy delays diabetes in humanized gnotobiotic mice by remodeling mucosal homeostasis and the metabolome"
Dr Tillett's research focuses on the role of gut microbiota in the progression of type 1 diabetes. Her research centers on different functional 'omic analyses including metagenomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics. Her research incorporates both dietary interventions studies and large longitudinal cohort studies.
Evance Pakuwal
Evance Pakuwal
Tue 15 July 2025
"A systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of microbiome-targeted therapy on the gut-liver axis in alcohol-associated liver injury."
Evance's research examines the impact of oral feacal microbiome transplant (FMT) on the gut-liver axis, focusing on gut microbiome changes in severe alcoholic hepatitis post FMT. Her expertise spans molecular microbiology, microbial genetics, microbiome analysis, and advanced bioinformatics in biological research.
Ben Hargreaves
Ben Hargreaves
Tue 20 May 2025
"Vitamin D deficiency negatively impacts gut microbiota during 5-fluorouracil-induced mucositis"
Ben Hargreaves is a master’s by research candidate at the University of South Australia within the Bone and Gut Research Group investigating the effects of vitamin D deficiency on chemotherapy-induced gastrointestinal mucositis and the gut microbiome.
Dr Sarah-Jane Leigh
Dr Sarah-Jane Leigh
Wed 19 March 2025
"Gut Microbiota Regulates Stress Responsivity via the Circadian System"
Dr Sarah-Jane Leigh is an early-career researcher interested in the role of the microbiota-gut-brain axis in behavioural and nervous system impairment. Her research interests include microbiota-drug interactions, circadian biology and cognitive performance.
Prof Francine Marques
Prof Francine Marques
Tue 19 November 2024
"Maternal Diet and Gut Microbiota Influence Predisposition to Cardiovascular Disease in Offspring"
Professor Francine Marques is an NHMRC Emerging Leader, Viertel Charitable Foundation, and National Heart Foundation Fellow. She leads the Hypertension Research Laboratory at Monash University. She has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in top journals such as Nature Reviews Cardiology, Nature Medicine, Nature Cardiovascular Research and Circulation, and has secured $10 million in competitive funding as a principal investigator. She won 28 awards including the 2019 American Heart Association Hypertension Council Goldblatt Award, 2020 High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and 2021 International Society of Hypertension Mid-Career Awards, and the 2021 Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal, and was a finalist for 11 awards, including the Eureka Prize Emerging Leader in Science. The purpose of her research team is to build exceptional scientists that help to improve cardiovascular health, using translational approaches to lower blood pressure via the gut microbiome.
Dr Kurtis Budden & Dr Annalicia Vaughan
Dr Kurtis Budden & Dr Annalicia Vaughan
Wed 25 September 2024
Faecal microbial transfer and complex carbohydrates mediate protection against COPD
Dr. Kurtis Budden is an early career researcher in the Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs at the University of Newcastle, and the Immune Health Research Program at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. He received his PhD in Immunology and Microbiology from the University of Newcastle in 2020, for his work investigating the use of microbial metabolites to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Since then, his work has expanded to investigate the broader involvement of the lung and gastrointestinal microbiome in a range of chronic diseases, including asthma, COPD, lung cancer and healthy ageing, including both fundamental research and clinical trials.
Dr Vaughan received her PhD in biomedical research from the University of Queensland in 2018, helping to establish research studying the role of the gut-lung axis in COPD. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher and Node Leader for Clinical Research at the UTS Centre for Inflammation, which is based at the Centenary Institute. Her research focuses on defining the role of gut bacteria and the gut-lung axis in the development of chronic respiratory diseases, which includes the identification of novel targets to treat these chronic diseases.
Dr Feargal J. Ryan
Dr Feargal J. Ryan
Wed 24 July 2024
"Enhanced microbiota data exploration through Taxon Set Enrichment Analysis (TaxSEA)"
Read the paper
Feargal is an NHMRC-funded investigator (EL1) in the Computational & Systems Biology Program at SAHMRI and the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. Feargal’s research combines microbiology, bioinformatics, and systems immunology to understand how host-microbe interactions shape health in the fields of gut microbiome, infection (COVID-19, ZIKV) and cancer.
Dr Calum Walsh
Dr Calum Walsh
Thu 30 May 2024
Detailed mapping of Bifidobacterium strain transmission from mother to infant via a dual culture-based and metagenomic approach.
Dr. Calum Walsh is a postdoctoral bioinformatician in the lab group of Prof. Tim Stinear at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. His current research is centred on the interaction dynamics within the human microbiome to understand the roles of different commensal microorganisms in health and disease.
He is also bioinformatics coordinator at Doherty Applied Microbial Genomics, a collaborative research initiative established to assist researchers, particularly those from other disciplines, use microbial genomics methods in their work.
Anna Li
Anna Li
Mon 25 March 2024
"Autologous Faecal Microbiota Transplantation to Improve Outcomes of Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: Results of a Single-Centre Feasibility Study"
Dr Simone Li
Dr Simone Li
Wed 9 August 2023 (Monash University Clayton Campus & online). Hosted by the Monash Genomics and Bioinformatics Platform in conjunction with AHMRN
"Metagenomics and the microbiome: Disentangling complex biology from complex data"
Simone is a computational biologist and NHMRC CJ Martin Research Fellow, and leads the new Microbiome Systems research group at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University.
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