Hilton heads WEHI

Professor Doug Hilton, a renowned researcher on cell signalling, has landed one of the most prestigious jobs in Australian science: director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Hilton, 44, will take up the position on July 1 and will take over from Professor Suzanne Cory, who has led WEHI since 1996.

He said in a statement that to join the likes of Cory, Sir Gus Nossel, Sir Mac Burnet and Charles Kellaway as head of WEHI was a sobering thought.

Hilton did his PhD at WEHI, working with Professors Don Metcalf and Nick Nicola, to purify and patent the LIF protein.

He did a post-doc at the Whitehead Institute at MIT on how red blood cell surface receptors recognise erythropoietin, and upon returning to WEHI discovered the suppressors of cytokine signalling (SOCS) protein family.

He has recently been using large-scale genomics to track down the genes that regulate blood cell formation.