Nationality Australian Name Jennifer Stow | Alma mater Monash University Fields Cell biology | |
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Institutions The University of Queensland
Harvard University
Yale University Known for Protein trafficking and inflammation Notable awards Fogarty International Fellowship, Yale University (1982–1985)
Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Medical Sciences (1994–1999)
NHMRC Principal Research Fellow
State Winner, Smart Women/Smart State Award, Queensland (2007) Institution University of Queensland, Harvard University, Yale University | ||
Jennifer Stow is deputy director (research), NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and head of the Protein Trafficking and Inflammation laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland, Australia. She was awarded her PhD at Monash University in Melbourne in 1982. As a Fogarty International Fellow, she completed postdoctoral training at Yale University School of Medicine (US) in the Department of Cell Biology. She was then appointed to her first faculty position as an assistant professor at Harvard University in the Renal Unit, Departments of Medicine and Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. At the end of 1994 she returned to Australia as a Wellcome Trust Senior International Medical Research fellow at The University of Queensland where her work has continued. Stow sits on national and international peer review and scientific committees and advisory boards. She has served as head of IMB's Division of Molecular Cell Biology, and in 2008 she was appointed as deputy director (research).
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Biography
Jenny Stow completed her tertiary education at Monash University Melbourne. Her undergraduate science degree was followed by an honours year (Hons 1st class) in the Department of Immunology and Pathology and a PhD (1979–1982) in the Department of Anatomy and Prince Henry's Hospital, under the supervision of Professors Eric Glasgow and Robert Atkins. Stow's PhD project involved characterizing cell populations in glomerulonephritis, including the use of electron microscopy.
She was then awarded a Fogarty International Fellowship for postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine, US, where she worked with one of the luminaries of cell biology and nephrology, Dr Marilyn Farquhar. Stow, Farquhar and colleagues published seminal studies on glomerular basement membranes and proteoglycans.
Upon leaving Yale, Stow took up her first faculty position as an assistant professor in the Renal Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard University. Stow and colleagues published important findings on secretion in polarized epithelial cells and published the first evidence showing trimeric G proteins functioning in membrane trafficking.
At the end of 1994 Stow returned to Australia as a Wellcome Trust Senior Medical Research Fellow to set up a cell biology laboratory at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. The Centre she joined later became of Australia's largest research institutes, UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where she has served as a group leader, professor and principal research fellow of the NHMRC.
Appointed head of IMB's Division of Molecular Cell Biology and then subsequently as deputy director (research) at IMB, Stow has performed roles in science, teaching and training and research policy. Her focus has been in cell biology, where her interest in protein trafficking and secretion is pursued using techniques such as microscopy and fluorescence imaging. Her current work in inflammation and cancer focuses on trafficking in epithelial cells and on cytokine secretion in macrophages. She is known for discovering new pathways for secretion and recycling in cells and for defining new functions for the cell machinery, including large and small G proteins, myosins and SNAREs.