Judith Greer

Judith Greer is an immunologist with a strong interest in the nervous system and autoimmune diseases affecting the nervous system.

She is a graduate of the University of Queensland, having completed her PhD on cancer immunology. She then undertook postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the USA, during which time her interests shifted towards immune responses and interactions within the nervous system (neuroimmunology), an area in which she has worked ever since. She isa Principal Research Fellow at the UQ Centre for Clinical Research, located at the Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital.

Her research is directly particularly towards trying to identify brain components that are targetted by the immune system in people with a variety of disorders, particularly multiple sclerosis (MS), which is traditionally thought to be an autoimmune disease, but also in psychosis, where we are now starting to understand that autoimmune targetting of the brain can play a role in some patients. She is interested in how the specificity of autoimmune responses within the nervous system relates to the symptoms experienced by patients, and in developing new ways to specifically turn off the damaging immune responses in the brain. Another focus of her research is to improve on pre-clinical models of MS, so as to enhance the translation of new therapeutic approaches for MS to the clinic.

Judith is also interested in research training, and held leadership positions in this area in the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine at UQ from 2000 - 2023. She is also committed to improving the field of neuroimmunology, and has been a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Society for Neuroimmunology and is the Asia-Pacific representative for the Global Schools of Neuroimmunology. Judith co-founded a society, Neuroimmunology Australia, to better support those working in this field, and was Convenor and Chair of the 14th International Congress of Neuroimmunology, which was held in Brisbane in 2018 (the only time this congress has been held outside of the Northern Hemisphere).