Dr Joanne Voisey

Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Biography
Joanne Voisey is a Senior Research Fellow within the School of Biomedical Sciences and the Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health at QUT. Her teaching background includes designing and delivering lectures at QUT, Bond University and UQ in the areas of medical biotechnology and genetics. She also has many years of experience supervising HDR students and is currently supervising 3 PhD students.
She has made significant contributions in the field of human genetics and co-authored over 60 peer reviewed research papers. For the last 15 years she has been investigating risk factors and treatment response of mental illness. In recent years she has used epigenetics to gain a richer understanding of complex human disorders and the role of environmental risk factors such as stress and trauma. Of particular significance is her research with Vietnam veterans, uncovering epigenetic markers that are associated with PTSD, resilience and physical activity following combat exposure. She has addressed challenging problems in schizophrenia research and her group were the first to identify epigenetic risk markers across the entire genome in brain samples.
Working in the Cooperative Research Centre for DNA Diagnostics for 5 years, she gained valuable commercial experience, and was involved in three patent applications with one commercialised to Qiagen. She is also an active volunteer in the professionals in schools’ program with QUT and CSIRO which encourages the participation and engagement of children and teachers in science. Joanne is a member of the Indigenous Health committee and has recently developed a project evaluating a culturally safe mental health therapy program for Indigenous peoples.
Personal details
Positions
- Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Keywords
PTSD, genetics, epigenetics, DNA methylation, schizoprehnia, veterans, psychiatry, psychiatric genetics, trauma, genomics
Discipline
Clinical Sciences, Genetics
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Ph.d (Queensland University of Technology)
- B.Sc (Hons) (University of Queensland)
Teaching
Unit coordinator of Ethics, Legal and Social Issues in Genetics and Genomics LQN203
Demonstrator for Cytogenetic and Molecular Pathology practical classes LQB490
Selected publications
- Mehta D, Bruenig D, Lawford B, Harvey W, Carrillo-Roa T, Morris P, Jovanovic T, Young R, Binder E, Voisey J, (2018) Accelerated DNA methylation aging and increased resilience in veterans: The biological cost for soldiering on, Neurobiology of Stress, 8, pp. 112-119.
- Voisey J, Mehta D, McLeay R, Morris P, Wockner L, Noble E, Lawford B, Young R, (2017) Clinically proven drug targets differentially expressed in the prefrontal cortex of schizophrenia patients, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 61, pp. 259-265.
- Voisey J, Lawford B, Morris P, Wockner L, Noble E, Young R, Mehta D, (2017) Epigenetic analysis confirms no accelerated brain aging in schizophrenia, npj Schizophrenia, 3, pp. 1-3.
- Mehta D, Bruenig D, Carrillo-Roa T, Lawford B, Harvey W, Morris P, Smith A, Binder E, Young R, Voisey J, (2017) Genomewide DNA methylation analysis in combat veterans reveals a novel locus for PTSD, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 136 (5), pp. 493-505.
- Cheah S, Lawford B, Young R, Morris P, Voisey J, (2015) Association of NOS1AP variants and depression phenotypes in schizophrenia, Journal of Affective Disorders, 188, pp. 263-269.
- Wockner L, Morris P, Noble E, Lawford B, Whitehall V, Young R, Voisey J, (2015) Brain-specific epigenetic markers of schizophrenia, Translational Psychiatry, 5, pp. 1-6.
- Wockner L, Noble E, Lawford B, Young R, Morris P, Whitehall V, Voisey J, (2014) Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of human brain tissue from schizophrenia patients, Translational Psychiatry, 4, pp. 1-8.
- Voisey J, Young R, Lawford B, Morris P, (2014) Progress towards understanding the genetics of posttraumatic stress disorder, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 28 (8), pp. 873-883.
- Lawford B, Morris P, Swagell C, Hughes I, Young R, Voisey J, (2013) NOS1AP is associated with increased severity of PTSD and depression in untreated combat veterans, Journal of Affective Disorders, 147 (1-3), pp. 87-93.
- Voisey J, Swagell C, Hughes I, Morris P, van Daal A, Noble P, Kann B, Heslop K, Young R, Lawford B, (2009) The DRD2 Gene 957C>T polymorphism is associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in war veterans, Depression and Anxiety, 26 (1), pp. 28-33.
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Joanne, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).