Researcher biography

Jonathan Lee is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Molecular and Systems Medicine Group at the School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute. His current work combines molecular biology, biochemistry and quantitative imaging techniques to unravel the nanoscale changes in the spatiotemporal organisation of key synaptic proteins implicated in neurodegenerative diseases.

Jonathan received his BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience from UQ in 2020 and began his research career as a neuroscience PhD student under the supervision of Dr Pranesh Padmanabhan and Prof. Jürgen Götz at the Queensland Brain Institute in 2021. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious Prof. Bob Williamson PhD top-up scholarship funded by the Yulgilbar Foundation. During his PhD, he developed extensive expertise in super-resolution single-molecule microscopy and various other advanced microscopy techniques and analyses. He also developed a custom-built imaging platform to apply ultrasound to live cells within a high-resolution microscope. Using this platform, he identified a spatiotemporally interconnected sequence of biological responses underlying the different fates of sonoporated cells. His work has resulted in publications in top-ranking journals such as Journal of Controlled Release and Theranostics.