2002 ASBMB Fellowship: Dominic Ng

I would describe my Honours year (1998) as the second most challenging and enlightening year of my life. Working in the field of intracellular signalling with Dr Marie Bogoyevitch, a young academic just arrived from London to the University of Western Australia, I was fortunate to receive undivided supervisory attention and a large bench space! I graduated my Bachelors degree with Honours and was thrilled to receive the Lugg Medal and the Swan Brewery Prize for my work. I was even more fortunate to publish this work in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Needless to say, given my positive experiences, I decided to stay on and pursue a PhD in the same lab. I shifted my focus to cardiovascular research by undertaking a project that investigated the intracellular signalling pathways critical for mediating various aspects of cardiovascular disease. Initial research up to 2000 centred on the role of a transcription factor family, the Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription (STATs), in regulating an in vitro model of cardiac hypertrophy, which resulted in my second paper as first author in JBC. This millennium year was also the most memorable due to the birth of my daughter, Caitlin, in late Spring. Although I had thought that Honours was enlightening and challenging, I was in for a complete surprise in 2000. In the midst of confocal microscopy and western blotting, I got a crash course in human reproductive biology and realised how quickly sleeping in two hour lots can drive a perfectly rational person to insanity.

Through the insanity of 2001, somehow came the discovery that the activity of STATs was elevated in the hearts of human patients suffering heart failure. Currently, I am investigating the potential of the Protein Inhibitor of STAT3 (PIAS3) as a means of further characterising the role of STATs, particularly STAT3, in cardiovascular disease. I am grateful for the ASBMB Fellowship, which will enable me to present this latest data at an American Heart Association meeting on the Molecular Mechanisms of Heart Failure, scheduled for August 2002 at a ski resort in Salt Lake City. I look forward to reporting back from my trip to the Mormon capital city of the world, where alcohol and coffee are largely prohibited; and as I will be there during the Northern Hemisphere summer, skiing won't be viable- at least I'll get some sleep while I'm there!

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This page last modified: October 10, 2008.