SAC CHAIR - PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE. HEAD, WEIGHT LOSS CLINIC, AUSTIN HEALTH. CHAIR, CLINICAL CARE COMMITTEE, WORLD OBESITY.

Joseph Proietto is Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Medicine Austin Health and an Endocrinologist specialising in Diabetes and Obesity. He established the first obesity clinic in Victoria at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and is now Head of the Weight control clinic at Austin Health. Professor Proietto was the inaugural Sir Edward Dunlop Medical Research Foundation, Professor of Medicine, and Head of the Metabolic Disorders Research Group in the Department of Medicine, Austin Health. He is currently on the executive of World Obesity and is Chair of the Clinical Care Committee.

Professor Proietto has published over 200 articles and several book chapters on obesity and diabetes. He is the Author of “Body Weight Regulation: Essential Knowledge to lose weight and keep it off”.

HEAD NEURAL PLASTICITY, THE FLOREY INSTITUTE OF NEUROSCIENCE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Professor Hannan currently holds an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship, and is Professorial Fellow at the Florey and the University of Melbourne.  His Neural Plasticity Laboratory explores how genes and environment combine via experience-dependent plasticity in the healthy and diseased brain. This research includes models of specific neurological and psychiatric disorders which involve cognitive and affective dysfunction, investigated at behavioural, cellular and molecular levels so as to identify pathogenic mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets

Prof Herbert Herzog studied Chemistry, switching to Biochemistry for his PhD, which he obtained from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) in 1989. In 1991, he joined the Garvan Institute where he studies the role of NPY and other family members like PYY and pancreatic polypeptide, investigating the numerous different functions of these important molecules publishing over 280 articles on this topic.

Prof Herzog currently holds a NHMRC - Senior Principal Research Fellowship and is the Chair in Neuroendocrinology at the Garvan Institute in Sydney.

Prof Herzog’s current work focuses on determining the fundamental processes that can lead to the development of obesity, or the other extreme anorexia, especially investigating the brain's role in the regulation of eating behaviour, stress and glucose homeostasis. He is also interested in how homeostatic processes that regulate bodyweight are coordinated with other homeostatic processes in the body, like the one that control bone and fat mass and how this changes with age.

CHAIR, SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD, FOUNDATION FOR PRADER-WILLI RESEARCH

Dr Strong received a B.S. from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in Medical Genetics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).  She performed postdoctoral studies at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., studying the molecular basis of the inherited diseases cystic fibrosis and Huntington disease.  After completing her postdoctoral work, she returned to the faculty at UAB, where she is currently a Professor in the Department of Medicine.  She is also a Scientist in UAB’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, where her laboratory focuses primarily on gene therapy for cancer.  She and her husband Jim have four children, including a son with PWS.  Theresa is one of the founding members of FPWR and directs FPWR’s Grant Program.

Lauren Rice is a Research Fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney and The Children’s Hospital Westmead Clinical School.

She completed a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Western Sydney and a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her thesis explored the characteristics and causal mechanisms of temper outbursts in Prader Willi Syndrome and included the first study to identify a deficit in brain gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in PWS. Lauren’s postdoctoral PWS work is looking at the efficacy of a mindfulness-based intervention at reducing temper outbursts, the nature of the oxytocin abnormality and the role of the GABA system in behaviour disturbance. Before research, Lauren spent seven years as a coordinator of group programs for children with developmental disabilities.