The NHMRC Research Program in Disorders of Human Sex Development (DSD) is a consortium of three of the world’s leading research scientists in the area of sex development.

We are:

Professor Andrew Sinclair PhD, FAHMS (Deputy Director, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Professor of Translational Genomics, Department of Paediatrics,The University of Melbourne) is a specialist in human molecular genetics, particularly in the molecular analysis of patients with DSD.

Professor Peter Koopman PhD, DSc, FAA (Emeritus Professor of Developmental Biology, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland) is a developmental biologist, focusing on gonad formation and sex development in mice, as a model for how these processes are regulated in humans.

Professor Vincent Harley PhD (Centre for Endocrinology and Metabolism, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne) is a molecular biologist with extensive expertise in studying pathways of gene regulation, particularly those involved in human sex determination and DSD.

Our research laboratories, based in Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, were jointly funded by a NHMRC Research Progam Grant from 2005 to 2019. Research in this Program used a range of technologies to identify genes that may play a role in sex development, and determine how these genes function and interact during typical and atypical sex development.

We have worked with the clinical community through the Australasian Pediatric Endocrinology Group DSD Focus Group to provide new modes of diagnosing DSD, improve the accuracy of predicting how any specific DSD detected in childhood will affect later life, and allow more effective counselling and clinical management.

We have endeavoured to build communication channels (including this website) to ensure that research information arising from our Research Program reaches clinicians, people affected by DSD, and the broader public.

 

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Last updated: 7 August 2021

Edit history: Author P. Koopman 9/09; revised PK 7/2013, 10/2013, 10/2015