The Australia-Korea Business Council (AKBC) is pleased to co-host the Australia-Korea Health and Biotech Briefing and Networking Dinner on 27 October 2022.
In collaboration with the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), the AKBC are hosting the Australia-Korea Health and Biotech Briefing and Networking Dinner in Perth on 27 October 2022. We are cordially calling for expressions of interest in attending the Health and Biotech briefing and networking dinner on this date. KHIDI will be joining delegates attending AusBiotech 2022 as they look to develop opportunities in partnerships and collaboration with Australian companies and institutions. This networking event will be an important chance to build person-to-person networks and relationships between senior leaders in the sector who are looking for partners for R&D collaboration, investment opportunities and local partners for opportunities in both countries. The AKBC has identified health and biotechnology as one of its six major priority areas, where we see the most potential in the Australia-Korea bilateral relationship. This is one of the first opportunities for in-person networking with Korean delegates since the pandemic began. As such it represents an excellent opportunity for key players in health and biotechnology to make the connections crucial to expanding and capitalising on the strengths of two advanced, innovative countries in the sector.
Speaker Line-Up
SallyDawkins -Director, Western Australia State Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Sally Dawkins commenced as WA State Director in January 2022. In this role Sally leads the Department's engagement with its diverse stakeholders in Western Australia, including government, business, academia and the community sector.
Sally has served overseas with the Department in Geneva (United Nations), Paris, West Africa and most recently in Ankara, as Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Turkey.
In Canberra, Sally has worked on a number of initiatives to support Australian businesses overseas, including the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, the Africa Down Under mining conference, and the Shanghai World Trade Expo. She has also worked as an Adviser to the Minister for International Development and the Pacific.
Fay Duda - Honorary Consul for the Republic of Korea in Western Australia
Fay Duda has been the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Korea in Western Australia since 2 May 2016. She is Deputy Chair of the Perth Korean War Memorial Committee Inc and member of the Korea Research Centre of Western Australia’s Advice and Advocacy Board.
Julie Quinn - Austrade Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Seoul
Julie commenced her role as Austrade’s Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for Korea and Mongolia in January 2021. Her role is focused on attracting Korean investors to Australia and growing Australia’s goods and services trade to Korea and Mongolia.
Since her commencement with Austrade in 2020, Julie previously had worked as a Head of Austrade Centre of Excellence in Health in Melbourne, Australia.
Julie has almost 30 years of Health and Biotech experience before joining Austrade, including roles at the University of Melbourne, Neurology Ireland Limited, Florey Neuroscience Institutes, Victorian Cancer Biobank, Australian Phenomics Network and Bionic Vision Technologies Pty Ltd.
Prior to that Julie has over 9 years of Marketing, Sales and Trade professions at ICI Australia and Abbot Diagnostics Division.
Julie has completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (Applied Biology) from RMIT, Graduate Diploma in Business (Marketing) from Monash University and Master of Engineering from RMIT.
Simone Spencer - Deputy Director General, Strategy and International Engagement at the Western Australian Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation.
Simone and her team provide strategic policy advice on state economic development issues and help to both shape and promote investment and trade opportunities. Simone’s team includes the State’s network of international offices who promote Western Australia and its industries across the world.
Simone has a background in shaping and managing complex government policy and reform and has had the benefit of working in a wide variety of fields from strategic ICT policy, energy trading, capital works investment, funding and contracting reform and community sector development.
Over the last 13 years Simone has held senior executive positions across the Western Australian Departments of the Premier and Cabinet, Treasury and Communities. Prior to this she worked in the United Kingdom.
Simone has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Politics and International Studies.
Dr Tracey Wilkinson - Director Stakeholder Engagement WA, MTPConnect WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub
An overview of the Australian health and biotech sector and current initiatives in Australia with a focus on Western Australia
Tracey has over 14 years' experience in the Medtech, Biotech, Pharma and Digital Health (MTP) sector across research, start-up and tech transfer roles. Currently Director Stakeholder Engagement WA at the MTPConnect WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub, she works to accelerate growth of the MTP sector in WA and Australia. Operating as an interface between government, industry and the research sector, Tracey loves to build connected communities and support innovators to translate their innovations into real-world outcomes. A scientific entrepreneur, Tracey co-founded an award-winning bioinformatics analysis start-up prior to completing a PhD in bioinformatics at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Archa Fox - Chair of RNA Network Australasia
Australia and Western Australia’s mRNA capability
Archa Fox is Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Western Australia, where she has been running a lab for 15 years. Archa is most well known for her discovery of RNA-seeded ‘paraspeckle’ nuclear bodies. Her research career has focused on paraspeckle structure and function, including development of RNA therapeutics. She is Chair of the RNA Network of Australia and was an elected Director of the Board for the International RNA Society (2020-21). She is one of the “People who mattered” in 2021 (The Age, SMH) for her work with other members of the Australian RNA Production Consortium in advocating for support for RNA Biotechnology. This work helped drive investment in RNA from State and Federal Governments including Moderna Therapeutics establishing onshore manufacturing of RNA. She has appeared extensively in print, radio, and online media explaining the utility and future potential of mRNA vaccines, RNA biotechnology and RNA therapeutics more broadly and has written 10 articles for The Conversation on the topic.
She recently Co-chaired a Roundtable discussion hosted by the Australian Academy of Science on RNA Biotechnology and was given the emerging leader award of the Australian/NZ Society of Cell and Developmental Biology in 2017.
Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker - Director Liver Cancer Collaborative
Prof Nina Tirnitz-Parker is a tenured Research Academic in the Curtin Medical School at Curtin University, and the Liver Cancer Program Lead and Head of the Liver Disease and Regeneration Laboratory in the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute.
Together with Prof Peter Leedman (Director, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research), she leads the Liver Cancer Collaborative (LCC) - a multidisciplinary consortium of hepatologists, oncologists, radiologists, computational biologists and cancer researchers. The LCC is working towards personalised precision medicine for liver cancer patients through a novel patient-matched research pipeline: (i) comprehensive tissue and serum biobanking, (ii) genomic and transcriptomic characterisation, (iii) patient-derived, precision-bioprinted organoid drug screening, (iv) patient-derived xenografts and (v) cross-linking of patient-matched research pipeline data and generation of a publicly accessible database. Her laboratory group at Curtin University focusses on cellular cytokine crosstalk of hepatic drivers regulating regeneration or disease progression, single nucleus RNA sequencing, 2D and 3D co-culture systems and mouse models of liver disease and cancer. Prof Tirnitz-Parker is also the Co-Lead for a Nanostring Centre of Excellence for Digital Spatial Profiling.
Her strong expertise in fundamental, translational and clinical science has been recognised through the election and re-election to the Board of Directors of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA) - the peak membership organisation for Australian healthcare professionals and researchers in Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Injae Baek - Senior Associate, Korea Investment Partners
Co-invested in 8+ in fast growing bio/healthcare companies in Korea, US, and Europe, ranging from Series A level to public listed companies.
Dr Jin-San Yoo - CEO & President of PharmAbcine
Dr. Jin-San Yoo is CEO, President and Founder of PharmAbcine, a clinical stage public biotech developing innovative oncology drugs. He has >25 years’ experience in the BioPharma industries. He has been an acting expert at the MAB working group of EDQM since 2016. He is the acting advisory board of policy making of MFDS and he served as an expert of the central evaluation committee of MFDS. He has been a director at LG Chem and KRIBB in the fields of therapeutic antibody division.
Dr. Yoo worked as TSRI Senior Associate at the department of Cell Biology of The Scripps Research Institute by Novartis CF grants. Before Scripps, he was HHMI Associate at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was trained as Intern, MS. PhD and MPI fellow at Max-Planck-Institute for BioPhysical Chemistry. Dr. Yoo studied both microbiology and organic chemistry as undergraduate at the Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany.
Dr. Yoo has authored numerous papers in peer reviewed journals, book chapters and he is also an inventor of several patents and patent applications.
Professor Kee-Jong Hong - Director General of Korea mRNA Vaccine Initiative
Professor Kee-Jong Hong is an immunologist based in the Department of Microbiology at the Gachon University, where he teaches on the vaccine development on the Immunology of Infectious Diseases; he also regularly manages on publication of the journals such as “Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research” and “Journal of Bacteriology and Virology”. From 2022 January, he is in charge of the Korean National vaccine project, KmVAC(Korea mRNA Vaccine Initiative as a Director General. His main research interest has been developing the basis of pandemic preparedness in viral and bacterial diseases. He served for Korean government as a member of Korea National Institute of Heath (KNIH) associated to the Korea Disease Control and prevention Agency (KDCA), preparing strategy, and developing novel technology against bioterrorism and pandemics. He has also worked on preparedness related to global high-risk pathogen detection, with interests in how efficient the novel diagnostic methods and global detection network in the infectious disease surveillance can protect local society from the standpoint of the heath security. He also serves on the steering committee of the Korea Vaccine Society, the Korea Association of Immunologists, and the Korean Society of Zoonoses.
This will be an invaluable session for all attendees interested in the bilateral space.
Due to limited capacity at the networking dinner, we are calling for expressions of interest to attend in-person. If you are actively working in the Australia-Korea health and biotechnology industry, we would love to hear from you and invite you to register your interest by following the link below. We therefore also kindly seek your understanding in noting that AKBC members and those actively working in the relationship will be given priority to attend.
