The Univeristy of Melbourne The Royal Melbourne Hopspital

A joint venture between The University of Melbourne and The Royal Melbourne Hospital

Dr Zhenjun Chen

Dr Zhenjun Chen

(03) 8344 9910 | zhenjun@unimelb.edu.au

Position:
Senior Research Officer
Theme(s):
Immunology, Bacterial and Parasitic Infections
Discipline(s):
Discovery Research
Unit(s):
Department of Microbiology and Immunology (DMI)
Lab Group(s):
McCluskey Group

Dr Zhenjun Chen got his Bachelor degree in Biology in 1986 from Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, China. He completed his Masters in Medicine in 1989 at Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, China. He then worked as a Research Assistant, and a Lecturer in the Institute of Radiation Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences between 1989 and 1997. During this time, he was involved in tutoring four undergraduate students. He also held two grants and headed a lab for a year before moving to Australia, where he held a WHO Fellowship Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service in Adelaide in 1995 and 1996. Zhenjun completed his PhD with Professor James McCluskey in 2001 on a Melbourne Research Scholarship and Overseas Postgraduate Research Scholarship. During his PhD, he successfully generated transgenic mouse lines with the highly autoimmune disease-associating human MHC haplotype (DR3-DQ2; and DR4-DQ8) using yeast artificial chromosome technology.

  • Key Achievements
    • As a postdoctoral researcher, Zhenjun has an ongoing interest on interaction amongst MHC, CD3 and TCR. He has co-authored significant publications in Nature, Nature Immunology, JEM and PNAS.

    Research Groups
    • McCluskey Group

      MAIT cells respond to precursors of riboflavin, allowing the immune system to detect microbial invaders. The McCluskey group aims to understand their role in infection/inflammatory conditions and is tackling this question using mouse models, human tissue analysis and structural biology.

      If you are interested to collaborate with us, please, feel free to get in touch. Please note that the human and mouse MR1 tetramers developed in our laboratory can now be ordered through the NIH tetramer core facility.


      Lab Team

      McCluskey Group

      • Associate Professor Alexandra Corbett
      • Senior Research Officer
      • Group Leader, MAIT Cell Program; NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow
      • Bronwyn Meehan
        Lab Manager
      • Dr Michael Souter
        Research Officer
      • Troi Pediongco
        Research Assistant
      • Freya Harewood
        PhD Student
      • Dr Huimeng Wang
        Research Officer
      • Xin Yi Lim
        Research Assistant
      • Lucy Meehan
        Research Assistant
      • Adam Nelson
        Research Assistant
      • Songyi Li
        Masters Student
      • Yilu Huang
        Masters Student

Full University of Melbourne profile