Dr. Damien Belobrajdic is a Principal Research Scientist within the CSIRO Health and Biosecurity Business Unit. He completed his PhD through the Department of Physiology at Adelaide University. Following completion of a post-doctorate at CSIRO focused on the development of blood-based biomarkers of colorectal cancer, he was appointed as a CSIRO Research Scientist in 2008 and has continued to develop the scientific knowledge that underpins the health benefits of new food products. Dr. Damien Belobrajdic has produced 43 refereed publications, a patent, and 10 commercial reports for food industry clients. In acknowledgment of his research achievements, he has received awards from the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Society for Medical Research, and the Nutrition Society of Australia. In addition, Dr. Damien Belobrajdic is the current Honorable Treasurer for the Nutrition Society of Australia and is on the Complaints Advisory Committee for the Grains and Legumes Nutrition Council (GLNC) and the management committee of the Oceanic Nutrition Leaders Platform (www.onlp.org). He recently served on the board for Science Technology Australia (STA) as the Agriculture and Food Sciences cluster representative.
Dr Michael Conlon currently serves as a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Health and Biosecurity. He has over 35 years of research experience in areas related to diet and health. Dr Michael Conlon's particular focus has been on the interactions that occur between dietary components such as fibres and proteins, and other components of foods such as polyphenols, and the impacts these have on gut microbes, gut physiology, and health. This research has been applied to a wide range of conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, allergies, and autism, and has involved studying treatment modalities such as probiotics, prebiotics, and faecal transplantation.
Dr. Beverly S Muhlhausler is the Research Director of the Nutrition and Health Program in the Health and Biosecurity Unit at CSIRO. She joined CSIRO in November 2018 after 12 years as an NHMRC Early Career and then Career Development Award Fellow at the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide. Over this time, her work on the impact of maternal overnutrition on the programming of obesity and metabolic disease has made a significant contribution to the current understanding of how exposure to maternal obesity and/or an excess nutrient supply before birth acts to alter the development of key systems involved in the regulation of energy balance. She has published 120 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited over 3,500 times, as well as 14 invited book chapters, editorials, and commentaries, and presented 24 invited talks at national/international scientific conferences. In addition, Dr. Beverly S Muhlhausler is also a President of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) Society of Australia and New Zealand, a Chair of the Scientific Programming Committee for the 2019 DOHaD World Congress, and Treasurer of the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL).
