Director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the Australian Genome Research Facility, the ARC Special

Research Centre for Molecular and Cell Biology and the ARC Special Research Centre for Functional and
Applied Genomics at the University of Queensland. His research interests have been focused for the past
three decades on the role of regulatory RNAs in the evolution and development of complex organisms. He
pioneered the thesis that the majority of the genome of humans and other complex organisms, previously
con-sidered to be ‘junk’, is devoted to regulatory RNAs that direct the epigenetic trajectories of
differentiation and development. He has published more than 300 research articles and reviews, which have
been cited over 85,000 times. His work has received editorial coverage in Nature, Science, Scientific
American, New Scientist and The New York Times. It has also been highlighted in two books: The Deeper
Genome by John Parrington and Promoting the Planck Club by Don Braben. He has received numerous
awards including the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Medal, the University of
Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Bertner Award for Distinguished Contributions to Cancer Research, and
the Human Genome Organization Chen Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Human Genetics and
Genomic Research. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Society of New South
Wales, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and the Australian Academy of Health and
Medical Sciences. He is also an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Paulo
Amaral is Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Insper in São Paulo, Brazil. He earned a BSc in Biological
Sciences (University of Brasília), MSc in Biochemistry at the Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo,
and PhD in Molecular Genetics at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, in
Brisbane. He undertook his postdoctoral work at the CRUK/Wellcome Trust Gurdon Institute and Milner
Therapeutics Institute, University of Cambridge, supported by a Royal Society and British Academy Newton
International Fellowship, Corpus Christi College Research Fellowship and Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences
Fellowship. He has also taught at different institutions as a visiting lecturer at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels, including at the Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University in Sweden, and Humanitas
University and Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in Italy. Since 2004, his research has explored the
roles of non-coding DNA, regulatory RNAs and RNA modifications in a variety of biological systems, in both
academia and industry. He was one of the first to show that non-coding RNAs associate with chromatin and
guide chromatin modifications for gene activation, and has been a longstanding student of the history of
molecular biology, especially of the overlooked middleman, but almost certainly