Benjamin Hogan, PhD

This project is jointly led by Associate Professor Ben Hogan and Dr Neil Bower from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, a leading life sciences institute at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Ben Hogan received his PhD from Melbourne University in 2005, and following postdoctoral studies in the Netherlands, founded his laboratory in 2010, to study the molecular genetic control of vascular development. Neil Bower received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2006. He has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, examining growth factor signaling in muscle development in salmon and mice. In 2011, Neil joined the Hogan laboratory and has since been pioneering studies of the zebrafish brain vasculature. Together Hogan and Bower recently described scavenger cells that modulate meningeal angiogenesis and clear waste from the brain and blood vessels.  This work was published in Nature Neuroscience and provides the basis for the ongoing research funded by BrightFocus. This project has been a catalyst for new research questions in the Hogan laboratory, shifting significant focus into understanding the blood brain barrier and neurovasculature in development and disease.