Associate Professor Greening is Head of Molecular Proteomics and Helen Amelia Hains Fellow at Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, and group leader at La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University.

He leads an innovative research program that seeks to identify mechanisms of cell communication through secreted factors and extracellular vesicles (EVs), and their capacity to regulate various pleiotropic biological processes of target cells through horizontal transfer of protein, DNA and RNA species between cells. This capability highlights their potential as novel targets for disease intervention, drug development and therapeutic applications. Not surprisingly, EVs (exosomes and microparticles among other types of EVs) have emerged as biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis and are being constructed as targeted therapeutics.

Associate Professor Greening undertook his PhD at The University of Melbourne and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, with further post-doctoral fellowship training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, focused on proteomics, biomarker discovery and protein chemistry, and Institute for Systems Biology (USA) and La Trobe University on cell signalling biology, large-data bioinformatics, protein networks, and systems biology.

Associate Professor Greening has extensive experience in high resolution quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomics, where he has developed and applied secretome and blood-based proteomics in discovery and preclinical analyses (biomarker discovery). The focus of the laboratory is a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the molecular function of EVs incorporating proteomics, cell biology, molecular biology, nanobiotechnology, functional assays, cell and animal models, with the goal of understanding mechanisms of cell signalling and function, identifying deliverable therapeutic targets and engineering nanoparticles for next generation cell-free therapies in in normal physiology and pathologies; including cancer and cardiometabolic disease.

His research has attracted national funding totalling $5.6M, including NHMRC and internal university and biotechnology partnership funding. He has published 81 papers in leading interdisciplinary journals including Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Molecular Psychiatry, Molecular Cellular Proteomics, Proteomics, Journal of Clinical Investigation and Biology of Reproduction. His papers are significantly cited more than expected in Medicine/Physiology (Greening=13.3 vs world=1.0 category normalised citation impact, SciVal). Associate Professor Greening’s research has been translated into several commercial avenues internationally, where he has several provision patents as a co-inventor.

Previously, he has edited two seminal textbooks in the field, Serum/Plasma Proteomics, >180,000 accesses). Associate Professor Greening is President Aust/NZ Soc. EVs, editorial boards of Proteomics and Bioengineering, and grant reviewer (NHMRC, ARC, and in France, US, UK, and Netherlands). Associate Professor Greening is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including ROYAN International Research Award on Reproductive Biomedicine, International Protein Society Hans Neurath Outstanding Promise Award, Research Excellence Award (American Journal of Physiology), and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Excellence Medal.