In 1984, Sillence became the Foundation Head of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. He was the Foundation Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Sydney in 1988 and the Foundation Head, Discipline of Genetic Medicine in 2005. He was part of the committee that pioneered the measurement of bone density in children in Australia and the team that pioneered the systematic treatment of osteoporosis in Osteogenesis Imperfects in children in Australia. Sillence is also responsible for the discovery and delineation of many new skeletal disorders in children. Sillence was a founding member of the
Human Genetics Society of Australasia (1978), the Australian Teratology Society (1981), the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (1990), and the
American College of Medical Genetics (1993) and has held office in the Human Genetics Society of Australasia from 1981 to 2000, often with more than one concurrent position. He has also held office in the
Royal Australasian College of Physicians from 1994 to 2000. He is a spokesperson for the International Nomenclature Committee for Constitutional Disorders of the Skeleton. He is part of the International
mucopolysaccharidosis type I expert committee, the National
Fabry Disease, and MPS expert committees for the LSDP. Sillence was instrumental in establishing the first
working party to write guidelines for training in
Clinical Genetics in Australia and was granted Clinical Geneticist status (1987) through the
grandfather clause. This certification model has been used by other
Special Interest Groups within the Human Genetics Society of Australasia. He has been involved in a considerable amount of collaborative research as well as those within his department. He has published over 130 original articles, has contributed over 30 book chapters, 8 books/
monographs, and has contributed to conference proceedings more than a dozen times. He has been a
peer reviewer/editor to 8 different groups/journals. Sillence created the standard four-type system of
osteogenesis imperfecta in 1979. It enabled progress into the molecular causes of the disorder and collagen mutations. In 2012, Sillence delivered the
Human Genetics Society of Australasia Oration, a prestigious lecture in his field. Sillence was appointed a Member of the
Order of Australia (AM) in the
2013 Australia Day Honours. ==References==