Associate Professor Robert Weatheritt

Associate Professor Robert Weatheritt obtained his PhD conjointly from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Heidelberg in Germany. During his PhD Robert worked on understanding the function of short linear motifs (SLiMs) within intrinsically disordered regions in the lab of Toby Gibson.

Robert was then awarded a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Madan Babu at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge and Benjamin Blencowe at the Donnelly Centre in Toronto. His work during this time focused on understanding the role of alternative splicing in regulating proteomic diversity. This work included the discovery that alternative splicing regulates higher-order assembly (or phase transition) in a mammalian-specific manner to expand both transcriptomic and proteomic diversity. Robert also helped to identify the crucial role of microexons in axon guidance and neuronal function, as well as identify their mis-regulation in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patients.

Robert joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research as a Lab Head and EMBL Australia Group Leader in June 2018. At Garvan, Robert is applying system biology approaches to study the contribution of post-transcriptional regulation to mammalian development and neurodevelopmental disorders.