Our Team

Vi grew up in Canberra, Australia, did his undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne, followed by PhD and postdoctoral work with Ron Laskey, FRS and CBE, and Ashok Venkitaraman at the University of Cambridge, UK (2003-2016). He started his laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia in mid-2016 and moved to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in November 2024 as a Professor and Nossal Leadership Fellow. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne. He is a veski Innovation Fellow and the inaugural Moderna Australia Fellow.

William (Billy) Hamilton is a Senior Research Officer in the Wickramasinghe lab. His work has a strong focus on implementing novel biochemical techniques to address fundamental questions pertaining to the molecular underpinnings of cell identity. He did his undergraduate studies at N.U.I. Galway followed by an MSc at Baylor College of Medicine, Tx. U.S.A. From here he undertook his PhD work in the labs of Profs. Mike Tyers and Tilo Kunath looking at how mitogenic signalling affects lineage specification in mouse development. Following his PhD studies, he moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, to continue his postdoctoral work in the lab of Prof. Joshua Brickman and held a joint position at the Danish Stem Cell Centre, Danstem (now ReNew Global), and the Centre for Stem Cell Decision Making (Stemphys) at the Niels Bohr Institute. Dr. Hamilton’s work in the Wickramasinghe lab aims to understand on how RNA export regulates embryonic totipotency and cancers which reactivate embryonic gene expression networks. Dr. Hamilton was the recipient of a 2024 NH&MRC Ideas Grant to expand this work and is eager to hear from enthusiastic students who may be interested in working at the intersection of Developmental and Cancer biology.

Kirstyn Carey is a post-doctoral researcher who undertook PhD studies in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University exploring the molecular pathway driving Glucocorticoid Induced Cell Death (GICD) in mouse thymocytes. Following this she worked in the laboratory co-headed by Professor Neil Watkins and Dr Jason Cain at the Hudson Institute examining how loss of “Hypermethylated in Cancer 1” (HIC1) gene activity promotes cancer initiation and progression.

Her current research focuses on understanding the molecular basis of selective mRNA processing and export from the nucleus, how deregulation of these processes contributes to human cancer and the potential for identifying opportunities for therapeutic intervention. She is currently working on a number of projects to develop small molecule inhibitors targeting mRNA export. Comprehensive characterisation of these small molecule inhibitors will facilitate our understanding of mRNA processing and export and will hopefully lead to development of pharmacologically relevant compounds which can eventually advance to clinical trials as cancer therapeutics.