Meet the school’s new Director of Education, Prof Robyn Slattery
Seizing the infinite possibilities of the precious present, and following these through to the future, with a volition for insightful and creative change to make things better.
Prof Robyn Slattery’s passion for education is evident as she embarks on leading the School of Biomedical Sciences’ team of talented educators and researchers engaging in education to create the best biomedicine course in Australia.
A vision she has shared, along with a message to current and future BBiomed students:
“We are thinking about your future careers, we want to offer you an integrated understanding of Biomedicine to spring-board you into futures that are truly interdisciplinary where you will solve future world problems – like pandemics, or harness AI for medical problems, or design health and wellbeing devices, or become any one of a variety of allied health professionals such as a physiotherapist, or optometrist. We want to show you what is possible, and show you how to get there, to actualise these possibilities.”
Robyn has been the Director of Education at the School of Translational Medicine, Monash University for the past seven years and has received awards for implementing and commercialising large scale transformative educational initiatives. She now brings her diverse skills and passion to us at The University of Melbourne. So how does a distinguished researcher in Immunology, transition to L&T where her innovative teaching practices have been adopted nationally, and in Canada and the UK?
A world first before setting off for the world
During her PhD studies at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (1988-1991) Robyn adapted the relatively new technology of transgenesis to the study of autoimmunity in specialised inbred mice that developed diabetes, called NOD mice. This work identified the first known gene to predispose to type 1 diabetes, published in Nature. It was a world first and reached the global press including the London Times.
Image: Robyn on a Himalayan Yak
Straddling the academic and commercial worlds
Robyn then undertook her postdoctoral time in Palo Alto, California working at DNAX – a unique biotechnology research institute that was spun out of Stanford University in 1980, then purchased in 1982 by Schering Plough (Now Merck). What made it unique was the culture of academic freedom for discovery research, the collaborative engagement with researchers on the adjoining Stanford campus, underwritten by a Biotech company with Blue Sky thinking. DNAX straddled the academic and commercial worlds.
“In 1992 when I arrived with my young family in California, Global Gene knockouts were a new technology. I worked with Drs Richard Murray and Stacie Dalrymple on generating cytokine gene knockouts for IL-6 and IL-13. Then moved on to developing the next generation of knockout technology using novel genetic engineering tools to delete genes from specific tissues. The work initially involved attempts to adapt a yeast system called FLT/FRT, which pivoted to utilising a phage system called cre/lox to targeting genes in mammalian Embryonic Stem (ES) cells.”
The weather was so consistently beautiful in Palo Alto that I missed Melbourne’s weather tantrums!
Image: Robyn with her daughter at Base Camp Mount Everest
Returning to Australia
Robyn returned to Australia having received the AMRAD Post-Doctoral Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research – established to attract talented young Australian researchers back home to support the establishment of their independent research team. Robyn’s pioneering genetic engineering work continued at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, in Canberra, where she establish her own laboratory (1995-2002). The proposal to apply this new tissue-specific gene targeting technology to studies on autoimmunity was another world first.
"I worked with wonderful collaborators and many students, to achieve the research goals. This resulted in the publication of a string of papers in PNAS on the adaptation of cre/lox genetic engineering approaches to the tissue specific deletion of a gene called beta 2 microglobulin (B2M), which controls the expression of HLA class I, and in doing so controls the development and activation, of, and targeted killing by, cytotoxic T cells. By sequentially removing HLA class I from different immune cells and organ tissues, and immune cells, I was able to show where autoreactive T cells are activated and their requirements to kill pancreatic beta cells, causing Type 1 Diabetes. Key international collaborators were David Serreze (Jackson Labs, Bar Harbor, Maine US), Pere Santamaria (Uni of Calgary, Canada). My first PhD student who worked with me on this genetic engineering tour-de-force, was Professor Emma Hamilton-Williams (Frazer Institute, Australia). Emma is now an international research leader - unravelling the important role of the microbiome in protecting from Type 1 Diabetes.”
Image: Robyn riding a Harley Davidson Motorcycle
A passion for the student journey emerges
Despite being independently funded by international research grants continuously for 25 years early in her research career, Robyn accepted the security of a tenured T&R salary as an Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology, Central Clinical School, Monash University. Her research laboratory continued (2003-2016) along the same theme, expanding the colony of genetically engineered mice to identify the role of pancreatic ductal cells in early events that precede the initiation of autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells.
“During this time I became increasingly engaged in education as a coordinator of Immunology units and Human Pathology units to Science and Biomedical Science students, and also teaching into many other courses including biotechnology, nutrition, medicine, and translational medicine. For many years I coordinated the Honours program and contributed to the Graduate Research Training program through supervision of students and committee program leadership.”
I became deeply passionate about education, and enjoyed innovating and co-designing with students to enhance engagement, assessment for graduate outcomes, cohort building – and sharing a joy of learning and teaching.
Returning to Parkville
In a lovely symmetry of life, in January 2025 as Robyn returned to Melbourne’s Biomedical Precinct, her eldest daughter Annai completed her PhD through The Florey Institute of Neuroscience, at the University of Melbourne.
Making it personal
"I like extreme sports – having travelled the world rock-climbing and scuba diving for 20 years. One of my favourite ‘habits’ now is to meditate deeply in silent retreats for 10 days every year, and 3 weeks every few years."
Image: Robyn scuba diving in Zanzibar