Postdoctoral Fellows

The current postdoctoral fellows associated with our Centre are:

• Dr Cong Xie: 

  Dr Cong Xie is a postdoctoral research fellow (Royal Adelaide Hospital Early Career Fellow) in the Centre of Research Excellence in Translating Nutritional Science to Good Health, Adelaide Medical School, The University of Adelaide. His research focuses on understanding the important role of the gut in glucose metabolism in both health and type 2 diabetes and the translation of these novel insights into improved therapy for type 2 diabetes.

  Immediately after his PhD, he was awarded a prestigious Royal Adelaide Hospital Mary Overton ECR (2022-24) to focus on intestinal bile acid signalling as a novel strategy.  With the great support from senior research leaders (A/Prof Tongzhi Wu and Profs Chris Rayner and Michael Horowitz), he is now determining:  the roles of bitter taste and bile acid signalling in the regulation of gastrointestinal function and postprandial glycaemia in cohorts of healthy participants and patients with type 2 diabetes. These studies will provide clear views of the physiology and pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes and have a high potential to establish novel, safe and cost-effective strategies to improve the management of type 2 diabetes.

• Dr Liza Phillips: Dr Liza Phillips (MBBS (Hons), FRACP, PhD, MS (Epi)), is a consultant endocrinologist and post-doctoral research fellow at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and a Clinical Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. She has clinical interests in diabetes, pituitary disease and inborn errors of metabolism in adults and is the deputy director of physician education at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. She is an early career researcher with an interest in the epidemiology and physiology of type 2 diabetes, in particular, the interaction between the gut and glycaemia and the impact of glycaemic control/diabetes in critical care.
• Dr Linda Watson
• Dr Laurence Trahair
• Dr Shahram Agah 
• Dr Amy Hutchison: Dr Amy Hutchison is an early career postdoctoral researcher based within the Lifelong Health Theme at SAHMRI, and affiliated with the Robinson Research Institute. Dr Hutchison is interested in exploring how modified meal patterns such as intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding can improve health in at-risk individuals. She also has a keen interest in exploring the gastrointestinal hormone response to modified meal patterns, and how this may modulate appetite and blood glucose control. She is involved in a number of clinical trials exploring the effects of intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding on metabolic health, as well as the effects of protein supplementation on blood glucose control and metabolic health in shift workers. She has published 43 peer-reviewed articles, with 1925 citations and an H-index of 26. Her research interests focus on exploring how modified meal patterns such as intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding can improve health in people at risk of type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, including shift workers. She is involved in a number of clinical trials exploring the effects of intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding on metabolic health, as well as the effects of protein supplementation on blood glucose control and metabolic health in shift workers, and characterising changes in circadian rhythms in pregnancy.  
• Dr Bo Liu
• Dr Mahesh Umapathysivam: Dr Umapathysivam is an Early Career Researcher and endocrinologist. Mahesh’s involvement in research began when he elected to incorporate a BMedSci (Hons) year into his medical degree and was supervised by 3 of the CRE Senior Investigators, Profs Michael Horowitz AO, Karen Jones and Christopher Rayner.  His BMedSci was a successful and transformative exercise – it resulted in two high quality publications, (1) in Diabetes reporting rapid tachyphylaxis to the gastric slowing induced by exogenous glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1); and (2) in Diabetes Care demonstrating the lack of glycaemic impact of IV glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) when added to intravenous (IV) GLP-1 in critical illness induced hyperglycaemia. He completed Medical School in 2013. On the basis of his research, clinical grades and demonstrated leadership, he was awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in 2014 and also the Radcliffe Department of Medicine Scholarship (the University of Oxford’s Flagship medical science scholarship). These were used to support a DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford initiated in October 2014, supervised by Prof. Anna Gloyn. After the first year of his DPhil, he deferred his candidature for 12 months to complete his medical internship to facilitate running clinical studies during his DPhil. The focus of his DPhil was the causal mechanisms underpinning genome wide association signals in type 2 diabetes (T2D).

  In 2018, he returned to full time clinical work as a basic physician trainee and an endocrine advanced trainee in Adelaide. He completed his basic and advanced training between 2018-2022 whilst also completing the write up of his DPhil. Not surprisingly, the final components of data collection to allow submission of his major PhD work were significantly disrupted by the pandemic. He graduated in 2023 from his DPhil and received his Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians. Dr Umapathysivam was subsequently appointed to a permanent (0.8 FTE) position as a staff endocrinologist at Flinders Medical Centre - appointment to such a position immediately upon completion of training is unusual and attests to his clinical and research skills and potential. Within this role he has substantial (0.4 FTE) dedicated research time to develop his research programme in the field of diabetes where he has now established himself as an independent researcher.

• Dr Ryan Jalleh: Dr Jalleh is an endocrinologist and early career clinician-scientist. He graduated (MBBS) from the University of Adelaide as the top graduate of his year, and was awarded both the prestigious Everard Prize for the highest overall grade in medical school, and the University Medal for outstanding academic merit. His PhD, focused on the relationship of gastric emptying with glucoregulatory responses and incretin physiology, conducted in the CRE in Translating Nutritional Science into Good Health, was highly productive with 17 publications in major subspecialty journals (first author in 15). His thesis was accepted in Jan 2024 and he was awarded the Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence.

  The theme of his research continues to be the relationships of gastric emptying with glucoregulatory responses and incretin physiology. He has presented his research at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes Meetings (EASD) in Barcelona (2019) and Stockholm (2022) and been selected to present two further oral presentations at the forthcoming EASD meeting this year in Madrid. He was a finalist in the Young Investigator’s Award at the Australasian Diabetes Congress in 2021 and was awarded a prestigious three-year Mary Overton Research Fellowship by the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Dec 2023.  

  Dr Jalleh has also been a strong advocate for research and is a member of the Australasian Diabetes Society Research Advisory Committee (since 2022). He has been working with the team to develop a National Diabetes Research Strategy. In addition, he has been part of the steering committee to organise the Adelaide Scientific Exchange Meeting 2024 to disseminate recent knowledge to fellow clinicians. He has participated as a judge for the Australasian Diabetes Congress Quality in Diabetes Care Symposium in 2023 and been invited to judge for the upcoming conference in Aug 2024. Dr Jalleh is a clinical lecturer at the University of Adelaide and provide mentorship to the year 3 medical students on a weekly basis. He also supervises the research projects for Endocrinology Advanced Trainees, with one being selected for presentation at the upcoming EASD meeting. He is regularly and increasingly invited to peer review journal articles regarding GLP-1 based therapies or incretin physiology and participates actively in this. This has included invitations to review by premier journals such as the Annals of Internal Medicine.