Philip O'Connell is a Clinical Professor in Medicine.
He is Director of the Centre for Transplant and Renal Research and is the Director of Transplant Medicine and the Clinical Islet Transplant Program at Westmead Hospital.
His main research interest is in islet transplantation and he is director of the Australian Clinical Islet Transplant Consortium.
His laboratory research is focused primarily on the immunobiology of islet xenograft rejection and developing islet xenografts as a clinical therapy.
He is past-director of a joint NHMRC/JDRF program grant that is devoted to the development of pig islets as treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
His other focus is the study of kidney graft outcome using new research technologies such as gene-chip microarray technology. This research is funded by the NIH.
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 Dr Booth is a research scientist studying the genetics of multiple sclerosis. He heads the Genetics of Multiple Sclerosis Research Group.
David's overall goal is to use genetics to better characterise multiple sclerosis and so facilitate the design and use of drugs to treat the disease.
He and his team are using positional cloning strategies to identify genes associated with susceptibility to MS, investigating candidate genes for association with disease susceptibility and progression, and microarray analysis to identify molecular profiles for various MS disease states. The molecular basis for the association of CD127 and other genes with MS is being investigated.
His group is also studying neutralizing antibodies to the main treatment for MS, interferon beta, and providing a diagnostic service measuring this in Australasian MS patients. This work should help in developing a pharmacogenomic strategy for MS treatment.
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Our Vision
WMI Annual Report 
WMI Researchers are part of the teams to receive NHMRC Enabling Grants over the next five years which will assist with the Australiasian Biospecimen Network and Breast Cancer Biospecimen Resource. 
Westmead Millennium Institute scientists led international team of medical researchers to identify a variant in the interferon gene IL28B, linking it with the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus. Study results now online at 
The BCTB has been awarded a Cancer Institute NSW Infrastructure Grant to assist with the collection, entry and auditing of clinical, pathology and specimen data, as well as data management solutions.