Special Report - Palmer’s genetics passion

While any one of Lyle Palmer’s achievements would be impressive on its own, it is the combination of a number of exceptional accomplishments that have contributed to Dr Palmer being named this year’s 40under40 First Amongst Equals winner.

Dr Palmer is internationally recognised as an expert in the genetics of complex respiratory diseases, and as the foundation chair in Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Western Australia (at 37 years of age he is the youngest scientist to be appointed to a chair at the medical school).

He is also a professor for the schools of Medicine and Pharmacology and Population Health at UWA.

In addition, Dr Palmer is a professor of the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, which has more than 300 staff and students and has an annual turnover of $5 million.

Dr Palmer’s passion for the study and advancement of genetic epidemiology (the distribution and determinants of disease) has led to the receipt of nearly $10 million worth of research grants in the past five years. During this time he has been invited to speak at 19 international conferences.

Dedicated to improving human health, Dr Palmer’s career so far has involved several strategic risks, including the combination of traditionally separate scientific disciplines, and entering new areas of the market through commercial, rather than academic, means.

Judges in the 2005 40under40 Awards were impressed by Dr Palmer’s obvious passion to help others through his research, and the effective way he had used research to partner with business.

With an undergraduate degree in science, Dr Palmer completed a PhD in paediatrics in 1998 at UWA, undertaking a scholarship to Oxford as part of his studies. He then became a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia post-doctoral fellow, and completed another PhD in genetic epidemiology.

Shortly after, Dr Palmer left WA to take up the position of assistant professor of medicine at the prestigious Harvard Medical School, and director of Statistical Genomics at the Channing Laboratory in Boston, US.

His graduate research on the genetics of asthma was recognised with the awarding of nine national and international awards, and in 1999-2000 Dr Palmer was both a Fulbright Fellow and a Churchill Fellow at Case Western Reserve and Harvard Universities in the US.

While at Harvard, Dr Palmer was jointly responsible for creating a new national genomic resource centre in heart, lung and blood disease as well as founding a biotechnology consultancy, Triaj, to provide high-level advice and due diligence to venture capital and industry groups.

Triaj was the result of an idea bounced off an investment banker friend of Dr Palmer’s, via the conclusion that, in biotechnology, most of the expertise resided in academia rather than industry.

This is in contrast to IT or other high-tech enterprises, and Dr Palmer saw an opportunity.

Originally engaging 40 of the world’s leading biotechnology experts as partners, Triaj now has more than 500 top clinicians, researchers and other biotechnology specialists to provide expert advice.

This advice includes transactions and projects of any size for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, the venture capital, investment banking and legal communities, universities and government agencies.

The path to success has not always been easy for Dr Palmer, however, with the founding of Triaj unfortunately timed just before the September 11 attacks in the US, which resulted in the collapse of a number of biotechnology and IT-based businesses.

Dr Palmer said business was extremely difficult to secure after the attacks, having initially fought hard to convince colleagues that forming a professional services company was the way forward for the industry.

The recovery strategy, according to Dr Palmer, was to maintain the confidence of consultants and the board of directors and to minimise costs and maximise the virtual nature of the company.

Although business conditions have improved substantially since, Dr Palmer said the company was still in the recovery phase.

It was the excellence of the team and their individual qualities of integrity, perseverance and courage that enabled the company to get through the early woes, according to Dr Palmer.

He said this was something that highlighted the importance of choosing carefully who to do business with.

Dr Palmer was lured back to WA in 2003 to become the foundation chair in Genetic Epidemiology at UWA. The laboratory has grown from just one staff member (Dr Palmer) at the start of 2004 to the point where it now has 25 staff and students and an annual turnover of $700,000.

In this role Dr Palmer is responsible for enabling the internationally unique clinical and epidemiological research programs in WA to be expanded into the areas of genetics and genomics, and to enable new opportunities for developing biotechnology opportunities in the state.

ACHIEVEMENTS*

Academic

1993-1996: National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Postgraduate medical PhD scholar.

1997-2000: NH&MRC postdoctoral research fellow in Genetic Epidemiology, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth, WA.

1999-2000:Research fellow, The Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, US.

2000-2002: Instructor in medicine, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, US.

1999-present: Associate senior research fellow, Human Complexity Group, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Leicester, UK.

2000-2003: Associate epidemiologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, US.

2000-present: Adjunct assistant professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, US.

2002-2003: Assistant professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, US.

2003-present: Visiting scientist, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, US.

2003- present: Adjunct associate professor of genetics, Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, US.

2003-present: Adjunct associate professor of biostatistics, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, US.

2003-present: Foundation chair in genetic epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, UWA, Perth, WA [endowed chair].

2003-present: Professor, Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, Perth.

2003-present: Professor, School of Population Health, University of Western Australia, Perth.

2003-present: Professor, School of Medicine and Pharmacology, UWA, Perth.

Industry

2000-present: Chairman and president, Triaj Inc.

2003-present: Senior consultant, Merck Research Laboratories, Bluebell PA, US.

Degrees and fellowships

1990: BSc.  – Double major in Human Biology and Archaeology, UWA.

1992: BSc. with first-class honors, Genetics and Epidemiology UWA

1998: PhD with distinction - Genetics and Biostatistics, UWA

2000: Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, UK.

·        List not comprehensive