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As a teaching and research academic within the School of the Environment at the University of Queensland, I research the biology and genetics of mosquitoes in our region of the Indo-Pacific that delivers fundamental knowledge into the role mosquitoes play in mosquito-borne disease. This work moves across basic and applied research and has advanced our understanding of mosquitoes, their evolution, species’ distributions, permitting better focused mosquito control to be imagined. More recent research involves exploring new environmentally friendly biological control tools such as using the Wolbachia bacterium and genetic modification to combat mosquito-borne disease.

For more detail on my research please see below and at this link http://www.nigelbeebe.com

Dr. Bialasiewicz worked at the Royal Children's Hospital and the Children's Health Queensland HHS for over 18 years conducting translational research and clinical support centering on infectious disease (primarily viral and bacterial) molecular diagnostics, general microbiology and molecular epidemiology. In 2019, he became a group leader at The University of Queensland's Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, expanding on a growing interest in the microbial ecology of the human body, it's role in health and disease, and ways to manipulated to achieve desirable outcomes. One Health microbial ecology, where human health is interconnected with the health of animals (both livestock and wildlife), and the broader environment is also an area of active interest. His background in virology has influenced the work he does, meaning a key focus of his microbial ecology works centres around the interactions between all types of microorgansims (bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and micro-eukaryotes).

Ongoing work includes:

- Leveraging of emerging technologies to explore the hidden microbial diversity and their interactions in the human body.

- Using the technology to develop microbial (e.g. phage)-based treatments or preventatives to complex diseases (e.g. Otitis Media, Chronic Rhinosinusitis, GvHD).

- Understanding the genetics of antibiotic resistance spread.

Professor Antje Blumenthal combines her expertise in immunology and microbiology to lead research on molecular mechanisms that control immune responses to infection, alongside more recently developed research on new antimicrobials. The overall goal of her research is to improve our ability to treat severe bacterial infections as part of the global efforts to overcome the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Prof Blumenthal graduated with a major in Microbiology from the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, pursued PhD research in Immunology at the Leibniz Research Center for Medicine and Biosciences Borstel, Germany, and undertook postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA. She joined The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in 2010 where she leads the Infection & Inflammation Group, fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations with immunologists, microbiologists, chemists, clinical research teams and industry partners. Her research is enabled by major funding from international and national agencies, and has been recognised internationally and nationally by prestigious awards, speaking invitations at eminent conferences and institutions, invitations to peer-review for esteemed journals and funding agencies. Prof Blumenthal is an enthusiastic undergraduate teacher and research student advisor. She is proactive in advancing the careers of junior scientists, leads the development and implementation of initiatives that promote equity, diversity and inclusion in science, and a positive workplace culture. Through leadership roles within the University and professional societies as well as editorial roles for international journals, Prof Blumenthal actively contributes to the scientific community.

A/Prof Lucy Burr is an experienced respiratory physician, training supervisor and clinical trials researcher at Mater Health and Mater Research – University of Queensland (UQ). She has a PhD (2017) in bronchiectasis microbiology and is an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, UQ. She is the Director of Respiratory, Sleep and Cystic Fibrosis medicine at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane.

As well as directing the respiratory clinical service at the Mater, Lucy has an active role in teaching both specialist trainees and medical students. She is a RACP college supervisor and trains one advanced trainee and four basic trainees per year. She directly supervises four medical students in her clinical team per year. Lucy is also currently supervising 5 PhD students, researching diverse fields such as glucose control in cystic fibrosis, asthma, fatigue, IL-22 and the effect of sleep on social cognition.

Lucy is recognised nationally for her clinical work on respiratory infections. She is the chair of the Acute and Critical Care panel for the National COVID-19 clinical evidence taskforce and a member of the guideline leadership group. Additionally, she is the recent chair (2020-2022) of the expert reference group on COVID-19 for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She is a recent (2019- 2021) convenor of the respiratory infectious disease special interest group of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, the Queensland TSANZ branch president and past president (2017-2020), a recent board director of the TSANZ national body and current Chair of the Australian Bronchiectasis Consortium. Lucy is currently serving on the TSANZ annual scientific meeting and World Bronchiectasis conference steering committees. She is recognised internationally for her work on Cystic Fibrosis (top 1.8% expertscape February 2024) and Bronchiectasis (top 2.2% expertscape February 2024) and has published in high impact clinical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, across a range of respiratory and infectious disease subjects, with >1500 citations in the past 5 years.

In addition to her clinical work, Lucy is the custodian and manager of the David Serisier Research biobank at Mater Research, a clinical repository of human samples from patients living with respiratory diseases. Lucy is also an experienced principal investigator on many pharmaceutical studies ranging from phase 1b to phase 4 studies investigating therapeutics for CF, IPF, COPD, COVID, influenza pulmonary hypertension and bronchiectasis. She has designed and lead non-pharmaceutical interventional studies investigating the role of macrolide in modulating inflammation in healthy adults. She is the group leader of the respiratory clinical trials unit at Mater Research, and the program lead for the chronic and integrated care program at Mater Research.

Lucy has a proven track record in collaborative and translational research. She is currently a consultant on 2 peer reviewed external grants totalling $1,306,000, including one involving biobanked samples, and is a chief investigator on a 2021 Ideas grant and a 2021 MRFF grant totalling more than $3 million dollars.

Dr Fernanda Cardoso is a Brazil-born Australian researcher interested in venom peptide-based biodiscovery and therapeutics development. Cardoso was awarded an MSc in Molecular Pharmacology and a PhD with an emphasis in Biochemistry and Immunology and is part of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where she develops novel therapies for complex neurological diseases. Cardoso has interdisciplinary training in the fields of neuropharmacology, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology and a strong background in drug discovery, which provides the skills to identify naturally occurring or synthetic bioactive molecules and to study their effects in human physiology with applications in neurologic disorders such as chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and motor neuron disease (MND). Please see Dr Cardoso’s Grants and Publications list for more details.

Before joining the University of Queensland, Dr Cardoso was part of the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, holding a prestigious CAPES Postdoctoral Fellowship. During this period, Cardoso developed unique high-throughput screen platforms for discovering protein and peptide targets of novel therapies to combat infectious diseases and novel helminth-derived bioactives with anti-inflammatory properties. Please see Dr Cardoso’s Publications list for more details.

Dr Cardoso is currently part of the Centre for Drug Discovery and manages several industry and academic projects studying ion channel modulators derived from natural repertoires, particularly venoms, and developing novel, effective drugs to treat neurological disorders.

Associate Professor Judith Dean, a Registered Nurse/Midwife with over 25-years clinical and research experience in sexual and reproductive health (SRH), HIV and other BBV, is a Principal Research Fellow at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. The overall aim of her program of research is to address inequities of access to sexual and reproductive health and rights education and services through innovative models of care and workforce development using mixed methods and longitudinal qualitative community-based participatory approaches.

She is currently working on research evaluating 'Birthing in our Community' models of care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their families, developing a program of preventative SRHR research including exploring access to culturally safe and responsive pregnancy options and abortion care and is working with community to develop a culturally safe and responsive 'Black and Proud' model of care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQAI+ Sister Girls and Brother Boys. She is also the Higher Degree Research Program Advisor for UQ Poche.

Before joining UQ Poche Centre in 2023, she was a research fellow at the School of Public Health (2015-2022) and was leading projects exploring innovative models of HIV Self-testing dissemination, access to peer-led Molecular point-of-care STI testing, transgender care, syphilis in pregnancy and access to pregnancy options, abortion and contraception. From 2016 to 2019, she was the co-ordinating investigator on the Queensland PrEP Demonstration Monitoring and Evaluation study. Her other projects and areas of interest include exploring the experiences of newly diagnosed PLHIV including implementation of a Peer Navigation program, access to SRH care for gender and sexually diverse young people and the sexual health literacy of CALD youth in Queensland. She has a strong background working in partnership with refugee and migrant / culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, sex worker organisations, gender and sexually diverse young people, and the LGBTQAI+ community.

During her time at UQSPH, she also taught into the Bachelor of Health Science (PUBH3002 Health Policy in Practice, PUBH3010 Global Health and Infectious Diseases) and the Master of Public Health (PUBH7101 Communicable Diseases Management and Control).

From 2002 to 2013 Judith held a joint appointment between Griffith University School of Nursing and Midwifery where she held the title of Griffith Graduate Sexual Health Program Convenor and Queensland Health where in her role as State Nurse Educator for Queensland Sexual Health and HIV Services she was responsible for state-wide coordination and development of clinical practice standards, policy and professional development programs for specialist advanced practice nurses working in SRH and HIV. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in 2014 titled Sexual health knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of Queensland Sudanese communities.

Judith has extensive educational and clinical expertise in SRH, HIV, women’s health and midwifery in a diverse range of national and international settings. Before moving into SRH and HIV education and research, she worked clinically as a midwife and SRH Nurse in a range of locations in Australia and overseas. This includes over 5 years working in the Northern Territory as a Midwife and remote area nurse along with two years with International Committee of Red Cross in settings such as South Sudan and Afghanistan developing midwifery training programs and models of care for women and their families experiencing conflict and displacement.

I am available to supervise PhD/MPhil students, Honours and Master of Public Health projects.

Associate Professor Paul Griffin is the Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services in Brisbane and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland Medical School. He has fellowships in Infectious Diseases from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, in Clinical Microbiology from the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and from the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine.

Paul is the Principal Investigator and Medical Director at Nucleus Network, a specialized contract research organisation specializing in early and late phase trials in infectious diseases where he has been the principal investigator on in excess of 125 clinical trials, predominantly in Infectious Diseases including novel vaccines and Malaria human challenge studies. This includes 8 vaccines for COVID-19 and a number of COVID-19 therapies.

As a Clinical Microbiologist, he maintains an active interest in diagnostic microbiology with a focus on clinical applications of faecal microbiome metagenomic sequencing.

In addition to a teaching role at the University of Queensland, Paul is also the chair of the Advanced Training Committee in Infectious Diseases with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the committee that oversees the training of Infectious Diseases specialists in Australia.

Finally, as a director and scientific advisory board member of the immunisation coalition, Paul has an active interest in vaccine education and advocacy and has become a trusted media authority and spokesperson across the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Wenyi Gu’s early education was conducted in China which include his undergraduate and master’s degrees in veterinary medicine. In 1996, he migrated to Australia and pursued his PhD study in biochemistry & molecular biology at the Australian National University (ANU). After a short period of work at John Curtin Medical School ANU as a junior scientist, he moved to Brisbane in 2001 for his post-doc at the University of Queensland and currently a post-doctoral research fellow at AIBN. He held a Peter Doherty Fellowship (2006-2009) and was further supported by NHMRC to spend 7 months at Harvard University as a visiting fellow in 2008. Since his post-doctoral research he has been working in the area of using RNAi to treat viral diseases and cancers. He also has a strong background in immunology and vaccine development.

Prof Lisa Hall is Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

Teaching: Lisa has experience lecturing at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in a range of public health and research methods courses. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. At UQ she was the Director of Teaching and Learning within the School of Public Health from 2021-2024.

Research: Lisa is an active health services researcher with expertise in epidemiology, implementation science and economic evaluation. Lisa’s work examines not only the effectiveness, but also the cost-effectiveness, feasibility and sustainability of health services. Her current research focuses on the interface between evidence, policy and implementation to improve the surveillance and prevention of healthcare associated infections.

Prof Hall’s research is pragmatic and “Real world”. It is multidisciplinary and collaborative, with an emphasis on translation. She has established active multidisciplinary collaborations with a wide range of leading researchers, policymakers and clinicians. Since 2013, A/Prof Hall has been named as a Chief Investigator on grants and consultancies worth over $19 million. Key grants include:

• Researching Effective Approaches to Cleaning in Hospitals (REACH): A national stepped wedge trial of examining the cost-effectiveness of an environmental cleaning bundle. This NHMRC Partnership Grant project with the Wesley Medical Research Institute used an implementation science framework to improve uptake of best practice cleaning approaches by environmental services staff.
• National Centre for Infections in Cancer – This NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence, has now received Synergy grant funding. Based at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, it aims at improving infection surveillance and prevention in cancer patients. This is novel work examining what clinical guidelines, therapeutics and surveillance approaches should be implemented to improve monitoring and survival in this vulnerable patient population.
• “There's no place like home”: national scale up of the paediatric low risk febrile neutropenia program - National collaborative project based out of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute – MRFF funded
• General Practitioner Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme Study (GAPS Trial). A cluster randomised trial examining the economic and clinical effectiveness of a multi-modal intervention to reduce antibiotic prescribing in primary care. Collaboration between UQ, QUT and Bond with Commonwealth Department of Health funding.
• Development of the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy - Commonwealth Department of Health funding

Policy Experience: Lisa has significant policy experience at statewide and national levels. Prior to returning to academia in 2013, Lisa was a senior manager at the state health department of Queensland - responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of infection prevention programs and policy. She was a technical expert on the Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Healthcare (ACSQHC) Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Committee, a role she has held continuously from 2009 to 2024.

CURRENT POSITIONS

· Senior Staff Specialist (Public Health Medicine), Queensland Health

· Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Clinical Research - University of Queensland

RECENT POSITIONS

· General Practitioner, Indooroopilly General Practice

· Director, Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability (to January 2021)

· Senior Medical Officer, Mater Intellectual Disability and Autism Service (to November 2020)

· General Practitioner, Cornwall Street Medical Centre (to November 2020)

Prof Colleen Lau - MBBS (UWA), MPHTM (JCU), PhD (UQ), FRACGP, FACTM, FISTM.

Prof Colleen Lau is an NHMRC Fellow and Professorial Research Fellow at the UQ Centre for Clinical Research. Her areas of expertise include emerging infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, and clinical travel medicine. Her wide range of research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, spatial epidemiology and disease mapping, infectious disease surveillance and elimination, vaccinations, travel health, environmental health, and digital decision support tools. Professor Lau’s research projects focus on answering practical questions in clinical management of infectious diseases and operational questions on improving strategies to solve public health problems. She leads UQ's HERA program on Operational Research and Decision Support for Infectious Diseases (ODeSI).

Prof Lipman is Executive Director of the Burns Trauma & Critical Care Research Centre; Professor of Anesthesiology & Critical Care, The University of Queensland and until recently (for 23 years) was Director of Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital; He holds Honorary Professorial appointments at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Unversity of Witwatersrand (South Africa) and Qeensland University of Technology.

He has qualifications in anesthesia and intensive care and has set up and been in charge of a number of Intensive Care and Trauma Units in South Africa before coming to Australia in 1997. he currently manages a large multidisciplinary research team with an output of over 120 peer-reviewed articles per annum. He has supervised dozens of PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 6 PhD, 1 MPhil and 1 MBBS/Hons students. Prof Lipman has been instrumental in developing the anaesthesiology and critical care component of a graduate medical program for Queensland and continues to lecture to medical and postgraduate students.

Prof Lipman is the author of over 550 peer reviewed publications, 30 book chapters and has been invited to deliver over 120 lectures at national and international conferences in many countries across the world. His research interests include all aspects of infection management in intensive care and he has a special interest in the pharmacokinetics of antibiotic dosage, an area in which he received his MD in 2006. His research into antibiotic usage in acute situations has received international recognition and he is regarded as an expert in the field. As such, he and his research team have conducted and presently conduct a number of clinical trials in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Europe and the UK.

Prof Lipman is an Editorial Board member for 10 International Journals, is Section Editor on four Antibiotic related Journals, reviews for 23 journals and is an external reviewer for NHMRC project grants (Local) as well as equivalent for a number overseas countries.

He is Chief Investigator on a 7000 patient International Randomised Controlled Trial comparing bolus dosing versus continuous infusions of meropenem and piperacillin-tazobactam

Treasure McGuire graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a Bachelor of Science (Pharmacology) from the University of Queensland UQ). She also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy and Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at UQ. In 2005, she completed her PhD in the School of Population Health, UQ, entitled Consumer medicines call centres: a medication liaison model of pharmaceutical care.

She has held a sennior conjoint appointment between the School of Pharmacy, UQ and Mater Pharmacy, Mater Health, Brisbane since 1996, and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 2006. In her Mater role, she has been Assistant Director of Pharmacy (Practice and Development) over this same time period. At UQ, she coordinates a graduate clinical pharmacy course within the Master of Clinical Pharmacy program. In 2016, this program received a UQ Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences Team Award for Programs that Enhance Learning and in 2017 a citation in the University of Queensland Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Treasure’s research is translational, focussing on patient centred-care and quality use of medicines in the domains of medicines information, evidence-based practice, medication safety, reproductive health, complementary medicines, communicable diseases and interprofessional education. She is a Fellow of the Australian College of Pharmacy and a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.In recognition of her services to medicines information, she received the Lilly International Fellowship in Hospital Pharmacy and the Bowl of Hygeia of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Sr Eileen Pollard Medal (Mater Research-UQ) for excellence in incorporating research into clinical care provision.

Prof Katharina Ronacher obtained an MSc degree in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Vienna (Austria). Thereafter, she was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Austrian Ministry of Science and Technology to complete a PhD at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Stellenbosch University, where she was subsequently offered a faculty position. Prof Ronacher was Senior Scientist on several large clinical research trials funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Union and the US National Institutes of Health with focus on identification of biomarkers for tuberculosis (TB) treatment response. In parallel, she established her independent research group investigating how endocrine factors impact immune responses to TB, for which she received uninterrupted funding from national and international funding bodies since 2008. In 2015, she was awarded a NIH R01 grant for her ground-breaking research into the underlying immunological and metabolic mechanisms of increased susceptibility of diabetes patients to TB. With this grant she has lead the international ALERT Consortium with clinical field sites in South Africa and at the Texas/Mexico border.

She relocated to Brisbane in 2017, where she now heads the Infection, Immunity and Metabolism group at the Mater Research Institute – University of Queensland, but continues to collaborate with clinicians and researchers in South Africa, the USA and Europe and holds an affiliate appointment as Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University.

Prof Ronacher's current research investigates the underlying immunological mechanisms contributing to more severe bacterial and viral respiratory infections in obesity and diabetes. Her research provides critical insights into the role of cholesterol and its derivatives in regulation of inflammation in the lung and how this knowledge can be exploided for novel therapeutic approaches to treat respiratory infections.

Jessica is a paediatric critical care nurse and researcher with more than 15 years of clinical experience and expertise. Her research themes to date have focused on ventilation strategies to reduce ventilator associated pneumonia and interventions to improve the safety and quality of care related to invasive medical devices. Jessica's developing research themes focus on enhancing health service surveillance using electronic health information in two major spheres: hospital-level surveillance for hospital-acquired complications and unit level surveillance for vascular access device complications and ventilator associated events. She is particularly interested in advances in infectious disease surveillance and tracking, using a combination of mature platforms and new electronic platforms. Jessica has experience leading international consensus studies using Delphi methods and is interested in clinical trials which embed hybrid strategies to enable the rapid and sustainable translation of research findings upon study completion. Jessica is passionate about growing clinician researchers and nurses’ capacity to lead and undertake research which contributes to practice change and better outcomes in our vulnerable patient groups including paediatrics and minority groups.

Critical Care Medicine focuses on supporting patients, often with one or multiple organ failures. Based at the largest Australian cardiac hospital, our research investigates better ways to support patients with heart and/or lung failure. We explore technological, pharmacological and engineering advances that could help our patients to live longer and better. Our group is world-renowned for clinically relevant large animal models, including heart failure, respiratory failure (ARDS), heart transplantation, sepsis, cardiogenic shock, and more. All our studies use hospital-grade equipment and follow the same clinical guideline to maximise translation. We actively take on honours, MPhil and PhD students from multi-disciplinary backgrounds (science, engineering, medicine, allied health), with a successful track record in supporting our students to secure their own grants and funding. Students are expected to contribute to other studies of the group. For more information about the group, please visit ccrg.org.au, and email if you are interested to join us.

Professor Rachel Thomson is a Head of the Greenslopes Clinical Unit, Thoracic Physician and clinical researcher working at Greenslopes Private Hospital.

She has an international reputation in the area of Pulmonary Nontuberculous mycobacterial disease. She has published widely in the area and is regularly invited to speak at international and national meetings.https://medical-school.uq.edu.au/research/ntm-research-group

Her current research focuses on immunological and environmental aspects of susceptibility to NTM infection, characteristics of the lung and gut microbiome in NTM, and improving treatment outcomes.

In a clinical capacity, Professor Thomson is able to offer patients expert management of their disease at Pulmedica, Greenslopes Private Hospital, at public clinics at The Prince Charles Hospital and the MetroSouth Clinical TB service of the Princess Alexandra Hospital and via telehealth for patients across Australia. Patients can also access novel treatments through clinical trials in both the private and public sector.

Prof Thomson also has a special interest in respiratory problems of the elite athlete. This includes asthma management, vocal cord dysfunction, and the requirements of national and international doping organisations for asthma medications.

Dr Ran Wang graduated with her PhD in 2015, and after undertaking a postdoc position in Scripps Research, USA returned to Australia in 2017. She is now a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher supported by the prestigious Bushell Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Gastroenterology Society of Australia. Dr Wang is interested to understand the nature of inflammation in gut and lung and investigate the local and systemic impacts of chronic gut inflammation. In addition to a growing track-record in the mucosal immunology field, she is also building an inter-disciplinary research profile in material science and nanotechnology for drug delivery and immune modulation. She is the Associate Editor of Frontier of Cellular and Infection Microbiology Journal since 2018.