Academics and graduate researchers in the O'Bryan Lab - Male Infertility and Germ Cell Biology.
Group members
Prof Moira O'Bryan
Moira is a world leader in the fields of male fertility, male germ cell development and sperm function. She is an ARC college of experts panel member (2018-2020), has delivered numerous plenary presentations, has won multiple high-ranking awards, and has held continuous grants from the ARC and NHMRC for 26 years. Her lab has two largely overlapping themes: Understanding the mechanisms of sperm production and function, i.e. ‘how to build functional sperm’ Defining the genetic causes of male infertility Moira is a steering member of the International Male Infertility Genomics Consortium.
Dr Jessica Dunleavy
Jess works on understanding the fundamental mechanisms that drive mammalian sperm production using multiple knockout mouse models. Her research mainly centres around cytoskeletal dynamics and their relevance to male fertility, with particular focus on the unique cytoskeletal structures, regulators and protein transport pathways that feature during male meiosis and spermatid remodeling.
jessica.dunleavy@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Gemma Stathatos
Gemma explores how the cytoskeleton functions during male germ cell development in order to produce healthy sperm and uses various microscopy methods to achieve this. During her PhD, she investigated the function of two non-canonical cytoskeletal proteins using models of mouse sperm and embryo development.
g.stathatos@unimelb.edu.au
Anne O’Connor (Bsc(Hons))
Anne manages the lab and has significant experience in working with protein production and assessment, hormone assays, antibody development and various other techniques. Anne has worked with Moira for many years and has been involved in the characterisation of multiple knockout mouse models, including several mutagenesis studies.
Joseph Nguyen (BSc(Hons))
Joseph is a research assistant that previously investigated research questions into the biology and functionality of neural receptors, specifically in Drosophila. This has given him broad experiences into molecular techniques which include cloning, recombineering, construct design and assembly. He is also experienced in microscopy as well as protein tagging and visualisation.
Maddison Graffeo
Maddison investigates the role of a novel coiled-coil containing protein in male fertility and sperm function. She is co-supervised by Dr. Brendan Houston and Dr. Jessica Dunleavy.
Tao Tang
Tao is investigating how tubulin post-translational modifications work during male germ cell development. He is co-supervised by Dr. Jessica Dunleavy.
Jack Deane
Jack is investigating the role of osmoregulation in sperm function.
Visiting researchers
Hongyi Yang (2024-2025)
Visiting from China (The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University). Hongyi is a visiting research and medical doctor. He is investigating the role of a coiled-coil protein in male fertility.
Ondřej Šanovec (2024)
Visiting from the Czech Republic (Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences). Ondřej is a visiting PhD Candidate in the Komrsková group with a background in microscopy and image analysis. He is learning about the cytoskeleton in spermatogenesis.
Past lab members
- Dr. Hongyi Yang (March 2024-March 2025) - visited from China (The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University)
- Jack Deane
- Ondřej Šanovec (September 2024-December 2024) - visited from the Czech Republic (Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
- Dr. Brendan Houston
- Dr. Sam Cheers
- Gülizar Saritas (November 2023-April 2024) – visited from Denmark (University of Copenhagen)
- Zoé François (February – May 2024) – visited from France (Claude Bernard University Lyon 1)