Meet our Invited Speakers for ASI 2025
We are delighted to present our lineup of esteemed speakers who will be joining us for this prestigious event.
Prepare to be inspired by their ground-breaking research and invaluable contributions to the field of immunology. Here are just a few of our distinguished speakers: These speakers collectively cover a wide range of expertise areas within immunology, including T-cell responses, antibody production, viral pathogenesis, respiratory infections, mRNA-based therapies, innate immune signalling, mucosal immune responses, inflammatory diseases, helminth infections, germinal centre responses, skin immune responses, and cellular immunotherapy. Their research contributions greatly contribute to advancing our understanding of immunological processes and developing innovative approaches to combat diseases.
International Plenary Speakers
Prof. Mark Davis
Dr. Mark M. Davis is the Director of the Stanford Center for Human Systems Immunology, a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He received a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. He later was a postdoctoral fellow and staff fellow at the Laboratory of Immunology at NIH and then became a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he remains today. Dr. Davis is well known for identifying many of the T-cell receptor genes, which are responsible for the ability of these cells to recognize a diverse repertoire of antigens. Other work in his laboratory pioneered studies of the biochemistry, genetics and cell biology of these molecules and T lymphocytes generally, which play a key role in orchestrating immune responses. His group has developed many new technologies to enable human immunology studies, including the widely used peptide-MHC tetramers and most recently spheromers to enable the labeling of antigen specific T cells, the first high throughput single T cell analysis methodology, the GLIPH program to analyze T cell specificities directly from sequence data and, most recently, a simple method to create immune organoids from tonsils or spleens to allow human immune responses to be analyzed in vitro.
Dr. Klein is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, and Gender Research. She is an expert on sex differences in immune responses to microbes and vaccines, with interrogation of sex-specific effects of aging and pregnancy in humans and animal models. She has over 215 peer-reviewed publications, authored several book chapters, edited three books on the broad topics of sex differences in response to infection and treatments for infectious diseases, and is listed in the top 1% of researchers worldwide for publications. During the 2009 influenza pandemic, she was commissioned by the WHO to evaluate and publish a report on the impact of sex, gender, and pregnancy on the outcome of influenza virus infection. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Klein wrote commentaries for several journals and was interviewed by several major news media outlets about sex differences in immunity, disease outcomes, and responses to vaccines. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2023, she received the Vivian Pinn Award for Outstanding Research in Women’s Health. In 2024 she became the Mercator Fellow of the University of Hamberg Research Unit on Sex Differences in Immunity.
Dr Eric Long
Dr. Long has a degree in biochemistry from the ETH Zürich, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He joined the Laboratory of Immunogenetics at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, in 1983. There, while studying antigen presentation to CD4 T cells, his lab uncovered processing pathways in different cellular compartments for the presentation of peptides by MHC class II molecules. He became Senior Investigator and Head of the Molecular and Cellular Immunology Section at NIAID in 1988. The main interest of Dr. Long’s lab has been the molecular basis for regulation of human natural killer (NK) cell function. NK cells are lymphocytes that contribute to defense against viral and parasitic infections, to elimination of tumor cells, and to vascular remodeling in early pregnancy. Fundamental knowledge of the regulation of natural killer cells in the context of different stimuli can be applied to exploit NK cells for treatment of diseases such as cancer.
Prof. Alexander Rudensky
Alexander Rudensky is Chairman of the Immunology Program and Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), Lloyd J. Old Chair of Clinical Investigation, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Tri‐Institutional Professor at MSKCC, the Rockefeller University and Cornell University. Prior to his joining MSKCC, he was Professor of Immunology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle. Dr. Rudensky received his Ph.D. degree from the Gabrichevsky Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow and postdoctoral training at Yale University Medical School with the late Dr. Charles A. Janeway, Jr. Currently, Dr. Rudensky‘s research is focused on the differentiation of regulatory T lymphocytes, and their role in the immune responses. His laboratory demonstrated a role for the transcription factor Foxp3 as a Treg cell lineage specification factor; his studies revealed an essential role for these cells as life-long “guardians” of immune homeostasis and key mechanisms of their differentiation and function. Dr. Rudensky’s work provided important insights into the fundamental role for regulatory T cells in immunological tolerance and in a variety of processes and pathologies including autoimmunity, allergy, transplantation, immunity to infections, pregnancy, tissue repair, and cancer. Dr. Rudensky is an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research. He is a 2023 Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists. He has been named a Thomson-Reuters Citation Laureate and awarded the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science, Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Coley Award for Basic Immunology by the Cancer Research Institute, American Association of Immunologists Pharmingen Investigator Award, American Association of Immunologists Meritorious Career Award, and Searle Scholar Award. He has been a member of numerous advisory and editorial boards including Cancer Research Institute, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Cell and Immunity. He serves also as an Editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Dr. Rudensky has authored over 250 publications.
Prof Megan Sykes
Dr. Sykes is the Michael J. Friedlander Professor of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and Surgical Sciences (in Surgery), Columbia University. Dr. Sykes is the founding Director of the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and serves as Director of Research for the Transplant Initiative and as Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation Research at Columbia. Dr. Sykes joined Columbia University in April, 2010 from Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where she was the Harold and Ellen Danser Professor of Surgery and Professor of Medicine (Immunology) and Associate Director of the Transplantation Biology Research Center. Dr. Sykes has over 39 years’ experience in transplantation biology and Type 1 diabetes research, including translational research from animals to clinical trials and mechanistic studies of human transplant recipients. She is Past President of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) and of the International Xenotransplantation Association. Dr. Sykes received numerous honors and awards, including the Medawar Prize in 2018, membership in the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians. She was awarded the Barry Prize by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2024.
Prof. Jo Spencer
Jo Spencer is Professor of Experimental Medicine in the Peter Gorer Department of Immunobiology, King’s College London, where she moved after studying lymphoid tissue structures in Departments of Histopathology at University College London, then King’s College London. Her most most recent work, funded by an Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust, has exploited technologies for deep analysis of cells from human tissues and their interrelationships in spatial context.
National Invited Speakers
A/Prof Maté Biro
A/Prof Maté Biro received his PhD summa cum laude at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany in 2011. His doctoral work focused on the biophysics of cellular actin cortex assembly. He previously studied Physics (BSc) and then Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology (MSc) at the Imperial College in London, UK, and did his Masters research at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. He has worked at a particle accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan and as a Research Associate for A*STAR in Singapore. In 2012, he moved to the Centenary Institute at the University of Sydney, working on T cell migration and antitumour functions. A/Prof Biro worked as EMBL Australia group leader at the Single Molecule Science node at the University of New South Wales, Sydney from 2016 to 2024, before joining the Garvan Institute of Medical Research as Laboratory Head and Faculty in 2025. A/Prof Biro is a founder and the current president of the Australian Society for Mechanobiology. His research, highly multidisciplinary in nature, focuses on the migration of cytotoxic lymphocytes and tumour cells, and the signalling and mechanical interactions between them.
Prof. Claudine Bonder
Professor Claudine Bonder (BSc(Hons), PhD, OAM) is the head of the Vascular Biology and Cell Trafficking Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology in Adelaide, South Australia. Having completed her science degree at the University of Adelaide and then a PhD at Flinders University, Claudine trained at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada before returning to Australia. She now has over 20 years’ experience in advancing medical research with continued funding from competitive granting schemes such as the NHMRC, Cancer Australia, multiple CRCs and industry. Claudine has ~100 scientific publications, is an inventor on granted patents, mentors the next generation of scientists, builds collaborations with consumer advocates, is scientific advisor to companies such as Carina Biotech (an Australian led CAR-T cell company) and DesmoX Tech (a drug development company). For her contributions to medical research and community outreach, Claudine has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. The overarching focus of her research program is to better understand how blood vessels contribute to cancer progression such that better patient outcomes can be achieved.
Dr Jessica Buck
Dr Jessica Buck is a Kamilaroi woman leading the First Nations Childhood Cancer Research team at The Kids Research Institute Australia. Her postdoctoral work focused on paediatric brain cancer research, including the use of radiation-sensitising drugs to improve treatment outcomes for children with brain cancer. Jessica’s research now aims to close the gap in cancer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children by investigating tumour biology, pharmacogenomics, and socio-demographic factors.
Dr Deborah Burnett
Dr Deborah Burnett is an immunologist dedicated to advancing our understanding of the body’s protective immune responses. As a co-lead of collaborative initiatives that span research institutions and hospitals, her focus is on understanding the B cell and antibody response to challenging infectious threats including those linked to autoimmune diseases. Her work has yielded publications in prestigious journals including Science and Immunity. Her contributions led to a highly commended Discovery Award from Research Australia in 2022 and in 2023 Deborah was awarded one of 4 Australian “Loreal-UNESCO For Women in Science” Fellows, and 2023 the NSW Premier’s Prize for Early Career Researcher of the Year (Biological Sciences). In 2025 took up a Scientia Senior Lecturer position at UNSW to lead a team using pre-clinical models to explore the role of antibodies in protective immunity and autoimmune disease. Deborah’s research is supported by an NHRMC EL2 fellowship, as well as MRFF and NSW Health funding.
A/Prof Anne Brustle
Associate Professor Anne Brüstle is an immunologist at The John Curtin School of Medical Research. Her work centres around the autoimmune component of Multiple Sclerosis. Her group is particularly interested in innate immune populations driving pathology in this complex condition. Utilising laboratory model systems in combination with a longitudinal cohort of people with MS they aim to understand the underlying biological principals of neuroinflammation. In collaboration with industrial partners her group further evaluates potential targets for conceptually novel MS treatments and deciphers their biological mechanisms in neuroinflammation. In 2018 she was awarded the Young Tall Poppy Award for her work for and with the MS community. She further was the chair of “Our Health in Our Hands” a transdisciplinary program to develop personalised monitoring and managing approaches for chronic autoimmune conditions such as MS and diabetes, in collaboration and co-designed by people with lived experience. Anne completed her PhD in Human Biology 2008 at the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Philipps-University in Marburg, Germany. She was recruited to ANU in mid 2014, after being a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada. She currently holds a Senior Research fellowship from MS Australia.
Dr Vanessa Bryant
Dr Sapna Devi
Dr Sapna Devi completed her PhD in 2013 at Monash University and has worked with world-class experts in the field of intravital imaging. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms regulating immune cell trafficking and functions in different organs. She is a team leader in her present lab at the University of Melbourne, investigating how the nervous system influences immunity. She is particularly interested in dissecting the fundamental cellular responses to cancer during stress in order to identify new targets for therapeutics.
Dr Aude Fahrer
Dr Aude Fahrer's major research interests are in immunology, cancer immunotherapy and bioinformatics. Her laboratory in the Research School of Biology, at the Australian National University currently works on three main areas: 1) The continued development of a novel bacterial-based cancer immunotherapy (successfully tested in an investigator-led phase I clinical trial in cancer patients). 2) Understanding the mechanisms of action of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapies, and their dependence on the gut microbiome. 3) The characterisation of novel proteins involved in immunology and cancer, following her lab's publication of over 2000 predicted novel proteins in the human and mouse genomes. Aude received her B.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Melbourne, in viral immunology (supervisors Dr. Lorena Brown and Prof. David White). Her first postdoctoral position was at Stanford University (laboratories of Profs. Yueh-hsiu Chien and Mark Davis), working on gamma delta T cells and also in the field of oral tolerance. At Stanford, she was able to make use of several emerging technologies, publishing the first use of MHC class II tetramers for staining antigen-specific T cells, as well as an early study using Affymetrix microarrays. In her second postdoctoral position, at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (with Prof. Chris Goodnow), she worked on mouse models of immunological defects, identifying the first viable mutation in a chromosome condensin protein, and publishing in the human genome issue of Nature. Aude started her own laboratory at the Australian National University in 2002, where she continues as a laboratory head, and as a teaching and research academic. She also holds a position as Research Professor at the University of Canberra.
A/Prof. Andy Flies
Andrew Flies completed a BSc in Computer Science at Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2002, with minors in Chemistry and Math. He earned his PhD from Michigan State University in Dec 2012. His focus since 2014 has been on the development of vaccines and immunology tools for Tasmanian devils. He currently an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania and leads the Wild Immunology Group. His team is developing a viral vector-based vaccine that can be distributed in edible baits to vaccinate wild devils in the Tasmanian landscape.
Prof. Ruth Ganss
Prof. Ruth Ganss is Head of the Cancer Microenvironment Laboratory at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and holds a professorial appointment at the University of Western Australia. Ruth obtained her PhD at the University of Heidelberg and over the last 30 years has conducted internationally competitive cancer research in Germany, the US and Australia. Specifically, her research has focused on blood vessels as the interface between immunology and cancer research. She has pioneered the concept of tumour vessel normalisation in the context of immunotherapy. She continues to develop innovative reagents and drug repurposing strategies for stromal targeting and therapeutic interventions in melanoma, breast and pancreatic cancers.
Prof. Daniel Gray
Daniel Gray is a Laboratory Head, Professor and Joint Head of the Immunology Division at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Australia. He completed his PhD with Richard Boyd at Monash University, studying how the stromal cells of the thymus govern T cell differentiation. His postdoctoral studies with Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, USA, focused on how autoimmune diseases are initiated in the Aire-deficient mouse model. Daniel was then recruited to WEHI in 2009 to work with Andreas Strasser on how apoptosis effects central tolerance. His laboratory started in 2013 and studies how various cell death modes shape adaptive immunity, seeking to understand the molecular control of immunological tolerance, responses to cancer and lymphocytic malignancies.
Dr Shane Grey
Dr Shane T. Grey is Head of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences [BABS] and Head of the Transplantation Immunology Laboratory in the Faculty of Science at UNSW, where he also holds a Professorship in Science. Shane completed his PhD in immunology at Monash University (1996), followed by postdoctoral training at the Sandoz Center for Immunobiology Boston, from where he progressed to Instructor in Surgery (1998) and then to Assistant Professor (2001) at Harvard Medical School. He was recruited back to Australia to the Garvan Institute in 2004 and joined UNSW as Head of School in 2023. His research centres on the genetic control of inflammation, particularly how the TNFAIP3 gene and NF-κB pathway regulate immune activation, tissue inflammation, tolerance, and cancer. Shane has authored over 100 publications, with more than 12,000 citations, reflecting a sustained contribution to immunology and translational science. He is passionate about bridging basic discovery with clinical translation: founding the Australian Islet Study Group, serving as a lead investigator in Australia’s first clinical islet transplant program, helping to drive national research programs in type 1 diabetes, and developing a novel gene therapy now in first-in-human trials to modulate immune and tissue inflammation. Shane is also committed to equity in science, with a strong focus on supporting women in research—evidenced by his active involvement in the Franklin Women mentoring program and his leadership in inclusive policy reform. Beyond the lab, he’s an avid adventurer who loves trekking, camping, and exploring remote, off-grid places.
Dr Claire Jessup
Dr Claire Jessup is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Immunomodulation Laboratory at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute in South Australia. As an NHMRC CJ Martin Overseas Postdoctoral Training Fellow she studied molecular T cell immunology at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford. She returned to Australia undertaking further postdoctoral research in pancreatic islet transplantation with Prof Toby Coates at the University of Adelaide and was recruited back to Flinders University to establish her independent islet cell biology group in 2008. Following multiple significant life-curveballs, including kids and cancer, she has recently returned to research and is currently funded by a Tim Welborn Mid-career Basic Research Fellowship from BreakthroughT1D Australia. Her research focusses on immune checkpoint molecules, like PD1, on T cells and their role in autoimmunity and cancer.
Dr Hamish King
Hamish King completed his PhD in molecular epigenetics at the University of Oxford and was a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary University of London studying gene regulatory networks that define human B cell identity and function. The King lab is based in the Genetics and Gene Regulation division at WEHI, where his team investigates the molecular mechanisms that underpin gene dysregulation in human immune-mediated diseases such as autoimmunity and primary immunodeficiency. Recent discoveries from his laboratory include high-throughput target mapping of promoter-enhancer interactions of autoimmune risk loci in primary human immune cells, quantifying transcriptional activity of non-coding gene regulatory networks in immunodeficiency, modelling human B cell DNA de-methylation dynamics, and mechanistic studies of novel chromatin regulators in immune disease.
Prof. Nicole La Gruta
Professor Nicole La Gruta is Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and heads the T cell development and function laboratory at Monash University. Nicole is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow, whose program of research focuses on deepening our understanding of the fundamental determinants of effective T cell immunity, aging related immune decline, and T cell mediated autoimmunity. Nicole completed her PhD at Monash University, studying T cell mediated initiation of autoimmune disease. She then undertook postdoctoral studies with Dario Vignali at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee, before returning to the University of Melbourne in 2002 with Laureate Prof Peter Doherty, to study antiviral T cell immunity. Nicole established her independent research program in 2007 and was recruited to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, in 2016, where she engages in a comprehensive program of discovery, clinical and industry-based research. Over the course of her career, she has been the recipient of multiple prestigious fellowships, including the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship, an ARC Future Fellowship, and most recently the Monash University Maureen Brunt Award. Her laboratory continues to engage in a comprehensive program of discovery, clinical and industry-based research.
Prof. Fabio Luciani
Professor Fabio Luciani is a leading expert in systems immunology and single-cell genomics at the School of Biomedical Sciences, UNSW Sydney, and a Visiting Fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine (NYC). With over 19 years of research experience, he has pioneered the use of single-cell technologies to study rare, antigen-specific immune cells in autoimmunity, infection, and cancer. He has authored more than 160 publications (H-index: 47, ~8,000 citations), secured over $35M in national and international funding, and delivered over 50 invited talks globally. His work bridges cutting-edge genomics with translational immunology, driving innovations in precision immune therapies.
Dr Nicole Mifsud
Nicole Mifsud is a Group Leader in Clinical Immunology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University. She completed her PhD in transplantation immunology at the University of Melbourne. Her research program incorporates cellular immunology, immunopeptidomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics to examine T cell-mediated immune responses associated with transplant rejection, drug hypersensitivity and viral infection.
Professor Justine Mintern heads the Vaccine Biology laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne and the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, Melbourne Australia. Justine’s research advances understanding of antigen presentation and dendritic cell biology and aims to exploit these mechanisms in the design and development of innovative vaccines and immunotherapies. She is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Research for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
Prof. Anthony Purcell
Tony is currently a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Fellow (Level 3) and lab head at the Department of Biochemistry and the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University Melbourne, Australia. He is also Vice President of the Australasian Proteomics Society and a Human Proteome Organisation (HuPO) council member. With a background in immunology and biochemistry, his laboratory focusses on how the peptide antigens presented to the immune system, coined the immunopeptidome, is influenced by malignancy, infection, inflammation and the environment. He is a leader in the field of immunopeptidomics and antigen presentation with over 320 related publications.
Prof. Matt Sweet
Matt Sweet is a Group Leader, Director of Higher Degree Research, and National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Leadership Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia). His group is interested in developing novel anti-infective and anti-inflammatory approaches through a detailed understanding of the molecular processes that control macrophage functions. Recent research in his laboratory has focused on immunometabolic control of macrophage functions.
Prof. Stuart Tangye
Stuart Tangye leads the Immunology & Immunodeficiency Lab at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, where he is a Senior Principal Research Fellow, and Professor (conjoint) in the Faculty of Medicine & Health, UNSW Sydney. He has 25 years of experience in the fields of human cellular and molecular immunology and inborn errors of immunity (IEI). His research focuses on the biology of human lymphocytes in health and disease and understanding how defects in single genes result in immune dysregulation. His research outcomes include elucidating critical roles for specific genes in human lymphocyte differentiation to identify functional requirements for effective host defense against infectious bacterial, viral and fungal diseases, as well as to maintain immune homeostasis. He has published ~300 peer-reviewed articles, holds positions on editorial boards of J Exp Med, Blood and the Journal of Human Immunity, and is a member and previous chair of the IUIS Expert Committee of IEI. In 2015, he established and leads the Clinical Immunogenomics Research Consortium Australasia (CIRCA), a multidisciplinary collaborative aimed at improving diagnoses and outcomes of people affected by rare monogenic immune disorers. His contributions to research have been recognised by being awarded the Gottschalk Medal (2011, Australian Academy of Sciences), a Fulbright Senior Fellowship (2015), the CIS (USA) President’s Award (2019), Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Scientific Research (2024), the NSW Premier's Prizes for Science & Engineering (2024 Excellence in Medical Biological Sciences), and being elected to the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2023).
Prof. Stephen Turner
Professor Stephen Turner is a world leading viral immunologist and Head of Microbiology at Monash University, where he also co-leads the Immunity Program at the Biomedical Discovery Institute. He earned his PhD at Monash under Professor Frank Carbone and completed postdoctoral training with Professor Janet Ruby and Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty. Professor Turner has received prestigious fellowships including the NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship, ARC Future Fellowship, and Pfizer Australia Senior Research Fellowship, and is a former President of both the Immunology Group of Victoria and the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology. His research integrates structural biology, genomics, systems biology, and cellular immunology to uncover how molecular and epigenetic factors shape T cell responses to viral infections. He has published over 190 publications and mentored more than 60 research students. He is frequently consulted by media, academia, and government in areas of science policy, vaccines, and viral immunity.
A/Prof. Antiopi Varelias
Associate Professor Antiopi Varelias leads the Transplantation Immunology laboratory at QIMR Berghofer in Brisbane, Queensland. She was awarded her PhD from The University of Adelaide in the field of renal transplantation. She held successive post-doctoral positions within the University of Adelaide’s Department of Surgery, and the Department of Haematology/Oncology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide before moving to QIMR Berghofer in 2008 to train under Professor Geoff Hill. During this time, her research focused on dissecting the role of cytokines and cell-mediated immunity in regulating graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) using preclinical bone marrow transplant (BMT) models, and clinical correlative and interventional HSCT studies. She was appointed to Laboratory Head in 2019 and leads an independent research program which continues to focus on understanding fundamental immunological mechanisms that underpin complications following BMT and cellular therapy, including GVHD and opportunistic infections. She currently serves as a Board Councillor for the Society for Mucosal Immunology (Australia/Asia region), Steering Committee member of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS), International member of the American Society of Haematology and member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre.
