Professor Bryan Williams

Bryan Raymond George Williams
Professor Bryan Williams
Born	1949 Mosgiel, New Zealand
Nationality	New Zealander/ Canadian
Education	The Taieri High School, Mosgiel, New Zealand; University of Otago
Medical career
Field	Molecular biology
Institutions	Hudson Institute of Medical Research Monash University

Hudson Institute of Medical Research

Bryan Raymond George Williams Hon. FRSNZ, FAA (born 1949) is a molecular biologist from New Zealand, with expertise in innate immunity and cancer biology. He is Emeritus Director and Distinguished Scientist at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, and Professor in the Department of Molecular and Translational Science at Monash University.

Williams graduated in 1973, from the University of Otago, New Zealand, with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Microbiology. He was awarded his PhD from the Department of Microbiology, University of Otago in 1976. He then moved to the UK to undertake postdoctoral training at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London, where he worked on the biochemistry of interferon action.

In 1980, Williams relocated to Toronto, Canada, where he held positions at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto. He continued to work on the mechanisms of interferon action and reported the sequence of the interferon-induced protein kinase R. He also worked on the characterisation of the Wilms tumour gene. He was recruited to the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA in 1991, where he led the Department of Cancer Biology until 2005. In 2003, the Williams research group published a highly cited paper on the innate immune stimulatory activities of small interfering RNAs, which has had important implications for the therapeutic development of small interfering RNAs.