Chris Goodnow

Christopher Carl Goodnow (born 19 September 1959) is an immunology researcher and the current Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He holds the Bill and Patricia Ritchie Foundation Chair and is a Conjoint Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney. He holds dual Australian and US citizenship.
Career.
Born in Hong Kong in 1959 to Robert Goodnow and Jacqueline J. Goodnow AC, Goodnow grew up in Rome and Washington DC before moving to Sydney, Australia as a teenager. He trained in veterinary medicine and surgery, immunochemistry and immunology at the University of Sydney and in DNA technology at Stanford University. After doctoral studies at Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the University of Sydney, he joined the faculty of the Stanford University Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1990. There he established the concept of multiple immune tolerance checkpoints, a framework now widely used in cancer treatment with "checkpoint inhibitors", and revealed the function of key genes in these checkpoints.
In 1997 Goodnow joined the faculty at the Australian National University as Professor and Founding Director of the Medical Genome Centre, leading its development into a major national research facility, the Australian Phenomics Facility. In 2015 he joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research as Deputy Director to translate genomic DNA sequence analysis of the human immune system into understanding the cause of immune disorders and developing more effective, personalised treatments. During this period Goodnow oversaw the development of the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics in partnership with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the only multidisciplinary centre of its kind in the southern hemisphere as well as playing a key role in the development of the Clinical Immunogenomics Research Consortium Australia (CIRCA). In May 2018, Goodnow was named Executive Director of the Garvan Institute.
Academic History.
1979-84: Training in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney
1983: B.Sc.Vet research, "Cellular and Molecular Studies of Kappa Myeloma Antigen", Clinical Immunology Research Centre, University of Sydney, with Dr. R.L. Raison
1984: Graduated, University of Sydney, B.V.Sc. Hons I, and B.Sc.(Vet) Hons I and University Medal
1985: Visiting Student and Research Assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Mark M. Davis, Dept. of Medical Microbiology, Stanford University Medical School
1985: National Health and Medical Research Council Biomedical Scholar, Ph.D. research, "A transgenic mouse model for self-tolerance in B lymphocytes", Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, with Professor Gustav JV Nossal
1986-89: NHMRC Biomedical Scholar, Ph.D. research, "A transgenic mouse model for self-tolerance in B lymphocytes", Clinical Immunology Research Centre, University of Sydney, with Associate Professor Ronald J. Trent and Professor Antony Basten
1989-90: Medical Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Clinical Immunology Research Centre, University of Sydney, with Professor Antony Basten
1990-97: Assistant Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University Medical School
1992-95: Searle Scholar
1997: Professor, Director of Medical Genome Centre, Australian Cancer Research Foundation Genetics Laboratory,
The John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University
2007-2014: Professor and Head of the Division of Genetics and Immunology, The John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University
2014–Present: Conjoint Professor, St Vincent's Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW
Industry.
Goodnow has served:
Other Interests.
Goodnow is well known for leading a 1980 expedition to Indonesia's remote Mentawai Islands of the coast of Sumatra, discovering the now-famous surf breaks and a wave that is today considered one of the world's best, Macaronis.