Margaret Jordan

Dr Jordan is Head of the Immunogenomics Research Group within the Discipline of Biomedical Sciences and Molecular Biology. She undertook a PhD in 2011, where she focussed her research on identifying genes involved in experimental autoimmune gastritis as well as genes involved in the development of Natural Killer T (NKT) cells, an extremely rare subset of T cells that are rapid responders of the innate immune system, that mediate potent immunoregulatory and effector functions in a variety of disease settings. In her current role, as Senior Research Fellow, she undertakes applied basic research to uncover neurological networks and pathways that may contribute to Multiple Sclerosis and other neurological and autoimmune disease. This immunogenomics approach involves both human-based studies and mouse models of disease and utilises several molecular tools, including the development of transgenic and knock-out mouse strains, congenic dissection of genetic linkage regions, gene expression microarray analyses, QPCR, Sanger and single-cell sequencing, transgenic construct development, flow activated cell sorting, and cell culture and microscopy techniques.

Dr Jordan's research achievements have been recognised through publications in high-ranking journals, including Nature Communications, Immunology and Cell Biology, Journal of Immunology, Frontiers in Immunology, Scientific Reports, Life Science Alliance, PLoS Genetics, Journal Immunology Research, and Rev Diabetic Studies.

Grant funding:

Dr Jordan has attracted funding from several sources, being awarded the prestigious NHMRC/MSRA Betty Cuthbert Early Career Research Fellowship and Category 1 research project grants from Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia (MSRA) and NHMR. She has also received funding from, the Tropical Australian Academic Health Centre (TAAHC),  the Australian Health Research Alliance Women’s Health Research, Translation and Impact Network (WHRTN), a Single Cell Access grant from Centre for Tropical Bioinformatics & Molecular Biology (CTBMT), the Rebecca L Cooper foundation, Rising Stars Research Grant (Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Sciences, JCU), Competitive Research Incentive grant (CRIG), JCUConnect Research Grant, as well as several equipment grants. She has successfully obtained industry support from 10X Genomics & Millenium Science, with their "Start Single Cell" Fellowship Program. In addition, Dr Jordan has been named on > 15 previous Category 1 grants, including one based on research from her PhD. She has also been the recipient of 10 Travel awards for national and international meetings from the Australasian Society of Immunology (ASI), Neuroimmunolgy Australia (NIA), Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF), Australasian Microarray Associated Technologies Association (now AGTA), the Logan Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, JCU Faculty travel grants, the International Congress of Genetics (ICG) and Korean Association of Immunology.

Dr Jordan has been invited to speak at National and International meetings, including Immunology World Forum (IWF), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021 (unable to attend due to Covid-19), Annual International Congress of Genetics (ICG), Dalian, Peoples Republic of China, 2016 and again in 2021 (unable to attend in 2021 due to Covid-19), International Congress of Neuroimmunology (ISNI), Brisbane, 2018, Brisbane Immunology Group meetings (BIG; 2009, 2017) and an African Genetics Society Symposium, Johannesburg, South Africa. She has delivered >38 oral conference presentations and produced >100 conference abstracts.

Editorial duties:

Dr Jordan’s editorial duties include Associate Editor of Inflammation, Review editor in 'Immunological Tolerance and Regulation' for Frontiers in Immunology and manuscript reviewer for  Scientific Journals, such as Frontiers in Immunology, Inflammation, Surgery Insights, ISCIENCE, CTI, JIG, and J Vet Animal Science. She reviews grant applications for NHMRC, Diabetes Australia Research Trust, the Logan Foundation, RL. Cooper Foundation, MS Australia and Fondation Recherche Medicale (FRM). She has also been abstract reviewer for the Congress of the Immunology of Diabetes Society, Australia and New Zealand Society for Immunology (ASI), Brisbane Immunology Group (BIG), Townsville Hospital Health Symposium, and examined PhD and Honours’ theses and Research and Travel grants for postgraduate students.

Society memberships/conference organisation:

Dr Jordan is a society member of ASI, ISNI, AAI and AGTA and an ASI committee member for QLD. She has organized the BIG meeting as part of ASI QLD committee each year since 2019, as well as the annual international meeting of the society (ASI), 2017, serving on the Scientific Program Committee. She was a Scientific Program committee member of ICG, China, 2016 and involved in organising Autoimmunity workshops in Sydney and the Whitsundays and Workshops for the Comparative Genomics Centre on Magnetic Island and Daydream Island, Whitsundays. She was a judge of the Student Research Presentations at the Townsville Health Symposium, 2015, 3MT thesis contests for several years and judged the Science Communications Prize at ASI, 2017. She has been invited each year to present a talk to laboratory-based Science Post Graduate students and a research based talk to Medical students with an elective in research. In collaboration with Corbett Research, she helped develop the chemistry used today by the Qiagen nucleic acid extraction robot.

Additional experience:

In addition, she has 11.5 years of experience as a Medical Scientist in Cytogenetics becoming an expert in identifying chromosome anomalies in human blood, bone marrow, amniotic fluid and CVS samples. She established/cryopreserved and deposited human EBV-transformed cell lines in the Coriell Cell Repositories; extracted DNA for population studies of peoples of Sub-Saharan origin; prepared centromeric probes and chromosome paints. Dr Jordan was instrumental in establishing the Fluorescent in situ Hybridisation (FISH) division within the Cytogenetics Unit, South Africa Institute of Medical Research (S.A.I.M.R). which facilitated further research of patient samples to better define translocations and the interphase analysis of numerical anomalies.

 

Teaching Duties:

               Co-ordinator:

BC4002/ BC4003 Honours in Molecular and Cell Biology” (now sc4111/sc4112 Honours in Biomedical Sciences and Molecular Biology) 2014-present

BC3102 (Molecular basis of disease) 2017-present

BC5102 (Advanced molecular basis of disease) 2017-present

BC5001 / BC5002/ BC5003 (constituting Masters’ by Research) 2018-2021

BC5312 (research and dissertation in biochemistry) 2012-2021

 

            Lecturing/workshop co-ordinator/prac lab supervisor and marker:
BC5102/ BC3102. ((Advanced) Molecular basis of disease) 2014-present

BC3202/ BC5202 Special topics in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) 2014-2022

PC3102 (Health care for Pharmacists- Pharmacogenomics) 2016-2021

PC 2204 (Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics for Pharmacists –Pharmacogenomics) 2021-2023

PC1320 (Introductory Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy- Pharmacogenomics) 2024-present

BM1000/ TV1102 (Introductory Biochemistry and Microbiology-Biochemistry). 2024-present

MBBS3 (Research elective for Medical students) 2020-2023

BM4011/BM4012 (Honours in Biomedicine) 2024-present

BM1300 (Genomics) 2024-present

Dr Jordan has been involved in the training and general supervision of Honours students in South Africa and has given lectures/talks to Honours students in Human Genetics and to Medical Interns. She has also taught in excess of 100 staff and students molecular biology technical skills.