Rate My Professor Graham Lieschke

Professor Graham Lieschke is a clinical and research haematologist and Professor at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University. He received his medical science and medical degrees from the University of Melbourne in 1983. He completed specialist clinical training in medical oncology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, obtaining Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1991. As the first Ludwig Institute/Royal Melbourne Hospital Clinical Fellow, he contributed to introducing white blood cell growth factors into clinical practice. His PhD at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research involved one of Australia’s first gene knockout projects, proving G-CSF as a key physiological regulator of granulocyte production. Postdoctoral training in tumour immunology followed at the Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He returned to Australia in 1997 as an independent investigator, establishing a zebrafish research program at the Ludwig Institute and continuing as Laboratory Head in the Cancer and Haematology Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. He served as Clinical Haematologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital from 2007 to 2022 and Honorary Haematologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre from 2016 to 2022.

Internationally recognised for research into blood disorders and cancer using zebrafish and mice, Professor Lieschke exploits the model’s strengths in genetics, embryology, and in vivo cell imaging to study haemopoiesis, leukocyte development and function, innate immunity, inflammation regulation, host-pathogen responses, and tissue regeneration versus scarring. His Lieschke Group at ARMI uses zebrafish mutants and infection models to identify genes critical for white blood cell development. He has published over 100 scientific papers and co-edited two books, including “Late fetal hematopoietic failure results from ZBTB11 deficiency despite abundant HSC specification” (Blood Advances, 2023), “Human genetic defects in SRP19 and SRPRA cause severe congenital neutropenia with distinctive proteome changes” (Blood, 2023), “Biallelic deleterious germline SH2B3 variants cause a novel syndrome of myeloproliferation and multi-organ autoimmunity” (eJHaem, 2023), and “A nox2/cybb zebrafish mutant with defective myeloid cell reactive oxygen species production displays normal initial neutrophil recruitment to sterile tail injuries” (G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 2024). Awards include the John Maynard Hedstrom Research Fellowship of the Cancer Council of Victoria, Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for Physicians, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship, NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship, Ludwig Institute’s inaugural George Hodgson Medal for Medical Science, and Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2023.