Research Leader
Richard Banati
Richard Banati is Professor and Foundation Chair of Medical Radiation Sciences at the University of Sydney, Director of the Ramaciotti Centre for Brain Imaging at the Brain & Mind Research Institute (BMRI).
His early scientific career commenced at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry (Neurobiology) in Munich, Germany.
Prior to taking up his current post at the University of Sydney in January 2004, he was Principal Fellow in the Department of Neuropathology, Imperial College and MRC-Cyclotron Unit, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London.
His work is highly cited and published in specialist journals as well as high-impact multi-disciplinary journals, such as The Lancet, Annals of Neurology and Brain.
The research of Professor Banati and his colleagues has received recognition through the bi-annual Award of the German league for Research into Alzheimer's Disease, Award for Interdisciplinary Research of Society for Radiation Research (Gesellschaft fur Strahlenforschung GSF, Munich), The New Frontiers in Science Presentation 1998 at The Royal Society (London), and the 2003 JSPS Professorial Award by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
In the last 5 years he has held grants in excess of A$5 million, including European programme grants and most recently grants from the ARC.
Professor Richard Banati has a long-standing interest in the role of non-neuronal (glial) cells in the progression of neurodegenerative and neoplastic brain disease, particularly the role of glia in overtly normal brain tissue.
More recently, his research has focused on the development of new in vivo imaging probes for non-neuronal cells and the methodological issues that arise from it.
The ultimate goal of this research is to improve our understanding of how glial cells regulate brain function and how glial pathways can furnish biomarkers of brain disease and therapeutic efficacy.
Since 2008, Professor Banati holds an ANSTO Distinguished Researcher Fellowship in a cross-institutional life sciences team that has unique access to a range of methodologies, including:
- magnetic resonance techniques;
- life cell imaging;
- impedance spectrometry;
- quartz crystal microbalance measures and
- protein structure analysis by x-ray and neutron-based techniques.