Brett Collins, PhD

Associate Professor Brett Collins is a lab head in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia, and currently holds a senior research fellowship from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). He did his PhD at Macquarie University in Sydney, studying the structures of RNA splicing factors, and then worked as a postdoctoral scientist at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, studying the molecular basis for the formation of clathrin-coated vesicles with Prof. David Owen. His lab studies now study the molecular mechanisms of membrane trafficking, with a focus on understanding how molecular interactions between proteins and lipids control this process. His approach is to combine protein structural information with biochemical and cellular studies to obtain molecular level insights into the interactions and functions of trafficking proteins involved in health and disease, including the sorting nexins and retromer complex which control endosomal membrane sorting and are defective in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and the regulation of SNARE-mediated membrane fusion in synaptic vesicle exocytosis.