Associate Professor Kelly Williams leads the Advanced Gene Discovery Team and is Head of Genomics & Bioinformatics within the multidisciplinary Centre for Motor Neuron Disease (MND) Research at Macquarie University. Since completion of her PhD in 2013, she have received four fellowships for genetics and genomics research into MND (MNDRA Bill Gole Postdoctoral Fellowship, NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship, FightMND Bill Guest Mid-Career Research Fellowship and NHMRC EL2 Investigator Fellowship). As one of Australia’s leading early career researchers in MND, she was recruited as a founding member of the Macquarie University Centre for MND Research

The majority of her academic career has focused on determining the genetic basis of motor neuron disease. She has played a central role in critical breakthroughs in MND through the identification of causal mutations in several genes. These seminal discoveries have opened new chapters in MND and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) research and have led to key insights into the pathology of these diseases. Her research has directly translated into clinical practice with these disease genes now added to diagnostic tests worldwide, including preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and pre-symptomatic testing. 

A/Prof Williams’ Genomics & Bioinformatics team’s current MND research themes are uncovering ancestral cryptic relatedness in disease, identifying disease-modifying factors underlying disease variability, and bioinformatic and biostatistical analysis of omics datasets (including RNA-seq transcriptome, SNP microarray, whole genome/exome sequencing datasets and DNA methylation microarrays).

MEDI2201

LaTeX and Overleaf training course for HDR students and supervisors