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 | Biography |  |
Normal growth in children requires different hormones and molecules to act to increase height and regulate fat, bone and muscle tissue in the body. Our studies at the molecular level investigate how these hormones co-ordinate cellular growth to try understand how diseases such as osteoporosis and obesity develop in children. Dr. Leong's research interests are in the molecular mechanisms of nuclear hormone receptor regulation of growth and body composition; childhood growth disorders; glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis and obesity in children.
He is a physician-scientist and clinical paediatric endocrinologist. He received his clinical and basic research training in Australia and at NIH in the USA. This included undertaking a NIH paediatric endocrine research fellowship and a PhD within the Bone and Mineral Research Program at the Garvan Institute, Sydney. During his PhD he investigated the role of cofactors in vitamin D receptor action in bone cells. From 2002-2004 he was a Senior Research Officer (SRO) in the Pituitary Research Unit, Garvan Institute. In July 2004 he was appointed as a staff specialist and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at the Mater Children’s Hospital and as a NHMRC SRO at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences (IMB), University of Queensland. In 2010 he was promoted to Associate Professor in the UQ School of Medicine. His work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Endocrinology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA. He is currently undertaking molecular studies on the role of the the Ski gene and nuclear hormone receptors in metabolism in child obesity within the laboratory of the Nuclear Hormone Receptors and Metabolic Disease Group of Prof. George Muscat at IMB, while establishing his own research group (Molecular Endocrine Research Unit at MCH) linking the IMB with the Mater Children’s Hospital and Mater campus through collaborative basic research and clinical research studies, including through the KOALA at Mater Healthy Lifestyle Research Program.
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