John Mattick


John Stanley Mattick is an Australian molecular biologist known for his efforts to assign function to non-coding DNA. Mattick was the Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research from 2012 to 2018. He joined Genomics England in May 2018 as Chief Executive Officer. In October 2019, he joined the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Career

Mattick received his high school education at St Patrick's College Strathfield. He obtained his Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney and his PhD in biochemistry from Monash University. Subsequently, he worked at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, the CSIRO Division of Molecular Biology in Sydney, and the University of Queensland, where he was based between 1988 and 2012.
Mattick has also worked at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Cologne and Strasbourg. He was Foundation Director of the Australian Genome Research Facility, two ARC Special Research Centres and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience.
Mattick was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2001 for service to scientific research in the fields of molecular biology, genetics and biotechnology, particularly through the development and administration of research institutes and the Australian Genome Research Facility.
In 2007 he was elected an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and in 2008 elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. More recently, he was awarded the Julian Wells Medal by the Lorne Genome Society in 2009 and the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Medal in 2011. He received the HUGO Chen Award for Distinguished Achievement in Genetic and Genomic Research in 2012, the same year he was appointed Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015. In 2019, he won the Advance Global Impact Award.
Mattick serves as Board Director for Arctoris Ltd, an Oxford-based technology company.