Dr Sean Coakley

I received my PhD from The University of Queensland in 2014 where I studied axonal regeneration and degeneration in the laboratory of Professor Massimo Hilliard at the Queensland Brain Institute. In 2016 I was awarded an NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowship to pursue postdoctoral research in Professor Hilliard's lab with the aim of discovering novel genes that regulate axonal degeneration in C. elegans. In 2018 I was awarded a UQ Early Career Researcher Grant and a Young Tall Poppy Science Award. In 2019 I was a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Professor Kang Shen in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, where I studied how mechanosensitive channels regulate dendrite branching through Ca2+ signaling during neuronal development. In 2022 I was awarded an NHMRC Ideas Grant and was recruited to the School of Biomedical Sciences at UQ as a Group Leader. My lab focuses on understanding the cellular mechanisms that protect the nervous system from damage.