A pioneer in the study of marsupial genomics has been named an Officer in the Order of Australia as part of the Australia Day Honours announced this week.

Professor Jenny Graves from the Research School of Biology at ANU has been given the honour for her work looking at the genetics of “marsupials and monotremes and their relevance to international understanding of human evolution.”

Although Professor Graves lists the study of kangaroos and platypus as a specialty, she has also worked on snakes and emus, Tasmanian devils and lizards.

The scientist heads the Comparative Genomics Research group in the Research School of Biology at ANU, and was foundation Director of the multimode ARC Centre of Excellence in Kangaroo Genomics.

Her group uses the distant relationship of Australian mammals from humans to understand how genes and chromosomes evolved and how they work in all mammals including humans.

Professor Graves’s laboratory is known internationally for using this perspective to explore the origin, function and fate of human sex chromosomes and even to discover novel human genes.

She has received a number of honours and awards, including the Macfarlane Burnet medal in 2006. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and Foreign Secretary of the Academy, and was 2006 L’Oreal-UNESCO Laureate.

Read more about the work of Professor Graves and her colleagues to sequence the platypus genome in ANU Reporter magazine: http://news.anu.edu.au/?p=789

Source and Photo: The Australian National University news