Byrne burns big at Monash

Neuroscientist Professor Ed Byrne has been named as the new vice-chancellor of Monash University.

Byrne, 56, takes over from Professor Richard Larkins. Byrne is currently the vice provost (health) at University College London and was previously dean of Monash’s faculty of medicine.

He is a clinical neurologist with a distinguished research career. He was a founding director of the Melbourne Neuromuscular Research Unit and a director of its Centre for Neuroscience, and has specialised in degenerative neurological diseases that lead to progressive muscular diseases such as muscular dystrophy and motor neurone disease.

He also contributed to research into the role of mitochondrial DNA abnormalities in neurological diseases.

Monash has also opened what it calls the largest zebra fish research facility in the Southern Hemisphere.

The aquarium, costing $5.4 million, is located at its new at its new Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute facility in Clayton.

The facility includes a $990,000 Carl Zeiss live duo confocal microscope.