Associate Professor Richard Ferrero
Bachelor of Applied Science Biomedical Science (1985)
Research Group Head, Gastrointestinal Infection and Inflammation, Hudson Institute of Medical Research
UTS: Alumni Award for Excellence – Faculty of Science 2016
Through his world-leading medical research, Associate Professor Richard Ferrero is working towards an understanding of the cellular processes involved in stomach cancer – one of the leading causes of cancer deaths worldwide.
As head of the Gastrointestinal Infection and Inflammation research group of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research since 2009, Ferrero’s research is focussed on understanding the chronic inflammation caused by the stomach bacterium, Helicobacter pylori.
“The long-term goal of my research is to be able to develop predictive tests to identify those H. pylori-infected individuals most at risk of developing stomach cancer. It is a dream of mine that we could one day develop a vaccine to prevent infection in the first place.”
“This is important because chronic inflammation is essential for the development of stomach cancer,” he explains. “More broadly, inflammation is now recognised to play a key a role in many diseases, including arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and many types of cancer.”
A microbiologist by training, Ferrero left Australia in 1990 to take up a postdoctoral position at the renowned Institut Pasteur in Paris, later gaining a tenured research position in the Institut’s Département de Bactériologie et Mycologie. He returned home in 2004 to a teaching and research appointment in Monash University’s microbiology department before taking up his current position in 2009.
An internationally recognised authority in the field, Ferrero has been a Senior Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council since 2010. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Monash University, and has contributed widely as an author and an inventor on patents. He is regularly called upon to present his research at conferences across the globe, and is an international member of the scientific committee of The International Workshop on Pathogenesis and Host Response in Helicobacter Infections.
His research has led to important clinical outcomes in the areas of antibiotic resistance, vaccine development and host immunity.
Associate Professor Richard Ferrero: I am not being disingenuous in saying that this is very humbling. As a scientist we receive very few accolades. I have to say when I receive the email saying that I won this award, I actually thought it was spam because it had something like “congratulations, you’ve won an Alumni Award”. I actually opened the email thinking I have gone into a lottery and I am going to get $10 million I have to click on this link within 24 hours. But no it wasn’t, it was that I had won this alumni award.
[Applause from audience]
So, we were told to stick to two minutes and normally I don’t bother preparing talks but I made an exception, because it’s two minutes. It’s a short piece of paper. But, given that some people have spoken for a bit longer, indulge me. I’ll try not to be too long though.
I studied at UTS, or as we knew it – “The Institute”, because it was the New South Wales Institute of Technology. I studied biomedical science. I have to say, and it’s probably out of context tonight given that we’re talking about excellence, but my first year was a disaster. In fact, I failed biology one. And when I enrolled in second semester, I’ll never forget the Dean looked up and me and said “Are you sure you want to enrol?”
But I stuck it out and by second year I discovered microbiology and I became fascinated by what bacteria these little organisms can do and particularly with respect to disease.
I was fortunate to have many excellent lecturers and teachers who really inspired me and by third year I actually started to get some really good grades. Two really stand out – one of those was a very ill-tempered, lugubrious Scot called Lewis Gibson who was the lecturer of medical bacteriology and a demonstrator who was a bit of his sidekick Bonnie McDonald and they were fantastic and they inspired me. And I know other people who went through that course still when we have met up we remember some of their sayings.
So from there, I went on, as you heard, and did a PhD and at the time it wasn’t possible at the Institute so subsequently I ended up at the Institut Pasteur, Paris which is really a dream come true for a microbiologist, you can’t go anywhere better than that. And after 13 years I came back.
One of the reasons why I am particularly delighted to win this award is because genuinely my time at the Institute was one of the most interesting and enjoyable phases of my life, notwithstanding the Great Hall and the exams. And in fact for many years when I was stressed I had a stress dream, and my stress dream was coming here and going to a maths 2 exam and not having prepared. I had a little glimpse of that before when I went to the toilet and I asked the girl where the toilet was and she pointed across and I just remembered as an undergraduate student coming out rushing across with the invigilator standing there making sure we weren’t doing anything we weren’t meant to do.
I’ve heard some amazing achievements tonight and I think it’s fantastic that UTS acknowledges these achievements from people who have been at university. I think one of my criticisms in coming back to Australia is that there is so much time spent talking about the achievements of sports personalities or TV personalities and we’ve really heard some remarkable stories tonight and I’m just happy to be a part of that group.
I’d like to thank Liz Harry and Cynthia Whitchurch who nominated me from the i3 institute here, colleagues and friends. I’d also like to thank my wife Lucy who is also a UTS graduate (Bio Med) but we never knew each other at the time, we met later when I was doing my pHD. And my son Christian, both of whom have been incredibly supportive and patient and shared their lives with three micron long bacterium. Thank you.
