Richard Simpson's Biography

Richard Simpson, Professor, La Trobe University

Professor Simpson received his PhD in biochemistry and chemistry at Melbourne Univ., Australia in 1974. After post-doctoral studies at the NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, he returned to Australia as a Research Fellow at St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, was a Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (1983-2011), a Research Prof. at the Univ. of Melbourne and Adjunct Prof. at Yonsei Univ., Korea. He is currently a Distinguished Professor, Laboratory Head, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS) at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He has served as Treasurer and Secretary General of HUPO on the HUPO Executive Committee, and is currently a member of HUPO Council, and inaugural and past-President of the Asia-Oceania HUPO Executive Committee (AOHUPO). On a national level, Professor Simpson is the inaugural President of the Australasian Proteomics Society (APS). Prof. Simpson has made major contributions to the field of analytical protein chemistry and pioneered many classical microsequencing strategies and micro-fractionation tools that have been further refined for proteomics. He has made key contributions to the field of cytokine biology including the determination of the primary sequence determination of IL-6, IL-9, LIF, rEGF and the stoichiometry of the IL-6 receptor system. He and his colleagues determined the three-dimensional structure (by X-ray crystallography) of the ectodomain of the human IL-6 receptor. Over the past decade, he has developed a major program in proteomic analysis of colorectal cancer, especially in the area of novel biomarker discovery and exosome/secretome biology. He is on a number of editorial boards, and a Senior Editor on Proteomics as well as Proteomics: Clinical Applications. Prof. Simpson was elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1996, awarded the AMRAD Pharmacia Medal from the Australian Society for Biochemistry & Molec. Biol., and was an elected councilor of the Protein Society (1993-1996). In 1995 Prof. Simpson was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FATSE), in 1995 received the AMRAD Pharmacia Medal (awarded by the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), in 1996 was elected Honorary Member of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in 2003 was awarded the Centenary Medal from the Australian Government "For service to Australian society in research and development”, and in 2008 received the HUPO Distinguished Service Award “For indispensible contributions in his service to HUPO since the inauguration of HUPO in 2000”. In 2015 Prof. Simpson was listed a ‘Highly Cited Researcher 2015’ (Thomson and Reuters, top 1% of World’s Most Highly Cited Researchers in field of Biology & Biochemistry). He has published 457 research publications, has an h-index of 87 with >34302 citations (h-index since 2011 of 47 with >11067 citations). and holds 14 patents. With the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Prof. Simpson has written three leading text books on proteomics – Proteins and Proteomics: A Laboratory Manual (2003), Purifying Proteins for Proteomics: A Laboratory Manual (2004) and Basic Methods in Protein Purification and Analysis: A Laboratory Manual (2009) He has edited a textbook devoted to “Proteomic Analysis of Human Plasma/Serum” (Springer) published in 2010.