Prue Hart

Is it any coincidence Prue Hart moved to the sunniest city in Australia to progress her research into the immunoregulatory properties of sunlight?

Prue heads the Inflammation research group at the Institute, looking at UV irradiation, Vitamin D and control of immune responses. Leading a team of eight, Prue facilitates daily experimentation, analysis and planning.

“In the broader picture, we are trying to better understand the mechanisms by which anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive processes (UV irradiation of skin) or molecules (interleukin-4 or vitamin D3) may work,” Prue explains.

Prue’s research into the immunoregulatory properties of sunlight first began in the mid 1990s while working at Flinders University in Adelaide. Relocating to the Institute in 2003, after 13 years at Flinders Medical Centre, much of Prue’s work switched to using models of asthma and allergic airways disease as the target for these anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive processes or molecules.

“The involvement of UV-induced vitamin D in our studies has occurred only in the last few years due to the large number of international epidemiological studies suggesting that serum levels of vitamin D may be inversely proportional to outcomes of many tissue cancers (colon, prostate, breast, melanoma) and hyperimmune diseases (multiple sclerosis, diabetes and now asthma),” she says.

“Australians are amongst the best photoimmunologists in the world which is appropriate for a country characterised by intense sunshine and one of the world’s highest skin cancer rates.”.
Originally from the sunshine state capital, Brisbane, Prue achieved a Bachelor of Science (Honours), Master of Science, and PhD from the University of Queensland. Prior to completing her PhD, Prue worked for 18 months at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen and travelled the world for a further 12 months.

“I realised Australia was where I wanted to be and I needed a PhD for any sort of career in medical research,” says Prue.

Completing her PhD with the famous liver group run by Professor LW Powell at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Prue says at the time the scope in Brisbane for medical research was very limited. She moved to Adelaide to complete her first three-year post doctoral qualification at Flinders University, the second at the University of Melbourne, before returning to Flinders University with an National Health & Medical Research Council Fellowship to establish an independent research group.

Prue finds a career in research to be very demanding but at the same time, very satisfying.
“Sometimes months can pass without great progress. Then there is always the sweat and tears and experiments that don’t work,” says Prue. “But every step forward, every manuscript accepted for publication, every talk given where you get questions that suggest that the audience has understood your arguments, is rewarding. You know you are adding only one small piece to the jigsaw but at least you are making some advance. I have one publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the USA with approximately 1000 citations.”

The research road is not always smooth, however, and Prue understands the hurdles for young professionals can be extremely challenging.

“As you develop your career, you learn to cope with many knock-backs of your manuscripts, your grants, your fellowship applications. However, it is very difficult for young researchers to handle such setbacks”.

With many close friends still in the eastern states, Prue spends a lot of time keeping in touch, and with some of those friends also in research she has found conferences provide wonderful opportunities for both networking and friendship.

Outside work, Prue says she tries hard to be a good mother for teenage daughters who need her more now than they did when they were in primary school.

“I have been lucky enough to juggle a research career with bringing up two wonderful daughters - I have to acknowledge a wonderfully supportive husband,” Prue says. “My daughters both play a lot of sport - I play tennis with the girls when we can, and swim lengths together at Claremont pool on Sunday mornings (admittedly more often than not it is just me)”.

Due to the global positioning of Australia, Prue feels it’s essential we understand the contribution of our sunny environment on our health and on disease pathogenesis.

“I also want to better understand the pathways by which exposure of skin to sunlight can have these systemic effects.”