Dr Bridget Southwell

Biography

Dr Bridget Southwell began her career studying embryonic development of the nervous system in the intestine at Melbourne University's Zoology Department with Professor Ian Gibbins and Professor Graham Campbell. She worked for three years as a research assistant to Professor Graham Brown at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and then completed her PhD in Biochemistry on proteins produced by the liver and the choroid plexus (this produces the cerebrospinal fluid) with Professor Gerhard Shreiber. She completed postdoctoral studies with Professor Joel Bornstein and Professor John Furness at Melbourne University's Physiology and Anatomy Departments, combining biochemical knowledge of molecular interactions and microscopy to study tachykinin receptors in the bowel. She received a postdoctoral Fellowship from the Gastroenterology Society of Australia to study cholinergic nerves and receptors. In 2000, she moved to the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute to work with gastroenterologists and surgeons to address gastrointestinal problems in children that may be related to the nervous system. She has become a specialist in colonic dysmotility and was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship in 2007 to undertake studies on new diagnoses and treatments for children with chronic treatment-resistant constipation. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Gastroenterology Association in 2005 and received the award for Paediatric Research from the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders for her studies on colonic dysmotility in children.

Research Interest

Surgical Research