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HUDSON INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

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A/Prof Michael Gantier leads the Nucleic Acids and Innate Immunity laboratory in the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Disease at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. He is an expert in nucleic acids biology with a strong focus on their therapeutic implications in the modulation of immunity.

His team has pioneered discoveries of the immunosuppressive effects of RNA therapeutics. In ground-breaking studies, they recently discovered that cleavage products of RNA therapeutics can emulate a natural checkpoint mechanism naturally preventing inflammation (Alharbi et al, BioRxiv 2024). These findings have widespread implications for RNA therapeutics such as mRNA vaccines, and our broad understanding of inflammation in autoimmunity.

He received the prestigious Milstein Young Investigator award from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society (2010), and Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society Young Investigator award (2014) and an Australian Future Fellowship (2014), among several other international and national awards. He has published 83 peer-reviewed publications in high-quality journals (inc. Nature, Cell, Nature Communications, NAR etc.), and is an inventor on 7 PCT patents. He currently serves as Associate Editor for the prestigious Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids journal. 

THE PETER DOHERTY INSTITUTE FOR INFECTION AND IMMUNITY

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Thomas is a laboratory head in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.  He has a background in clinical and experimental medicine and joined the University of Melbourne in 2005 as a postdoctoral fellow.  Over the years, Thomas has been supported by prestigious fellowships, including from the Sylvia & Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation, and currently holds a NHMRC Investigator followship. His team identified and coined “tissue-resident memory T cells” (TRM) as the T cell population that dominates immune protection at body surfaces and pioneered their functional and transcriptional characterization.  This widely recognized work is now featured in immunology and virology textbooks.  Together with national and international collaborators, his team has also developed novel models of melanoma and metastatic disease.  Using these models, his team recently identified CD8 TRM cells as key drivers of a durable melanoma-immune equilibrium in skin and described a multitude of MHC II-dependent contributions of CD4 helper T cells to melanoma immunity. The overall goal of his team is to better understand the role of T cells in health and disease and to develop immunotherapies that target T cells for improved clinical outcomes in infection, inflammation and cancer.

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

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Prof Stephanie Gras is head of the Viral & Structural Immunology laboratory and Deputy Director of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS) at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She is an internationally recognised leader in the field of T cell Immunology and Structural Biology with a sustained record of high-quality publications in peer reviewed journals (> 140 publications in Nature, Science, Cell, Immunity, Nature Immunology, Science Immunology, Nature Communications, PNAS ...), with a successful record of research funding (NHMRC, MRFF, ARC, VMRAF, Commercial contract & philanthropy), and is strongly committed to advance supportive and equitable research environments. Prof Gras is currently an NHMRC Investigator Fellow (L2) and has been awarded five fellowships over her career (Monash, ARC Future Fellowship, NHMRC CDF2 and SRFA). She has been awarded the Georgina Sweet Award for Women in Biomedical Science (2017), SCANZ Sandy Mathieson Medal (2022), ASBMB Shimadzu Medal (2023). Prof Gras is also an inventor and co-founder of Resseptor Therapeutics to modify T cells for therapeutics applications.  

Prof Gras’ research is instrumental on providing a better understanding of the first key event in T cell-mediated immunity towards pathogens: the antigen recognition mechanism. Notably her work has elucidated the link between HLA and asymptomatic COVID profile, link between TCR docking orientation and T cell activation. Understanding antigen recognition using structural biology offers tremendous opportunities to design new therapies that mobilise, reprogram, or boost the immune system. 

MATER RESEARCH INSTITUTE-UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

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Sumaira Hasnain graduated with her PhD in December 2010 from The University of Manchester, UK. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Mater Research Institute-University of Queensland with a team of 8 researchers. A/Prof Hasnain was the first globally to demonstrate that immunity can modulate protein production in secretory cells in infection and chronic diseases. Her long-term vision has been to characterise these novel immune factors and manipulate them therapeutically using pre-clinical models of immune-driven pathologies. She holds several patents for targeted immunotherapy in metabolic disease which has led to the formation of a spin-off company, Jetra Therapeutics and venture capitalist funding. She has a rapid upward trajectory in research, evident by extensive body of high-quality publications including in Nature Medicine, Nature Comms, Oncogene and Gastroenterology. She has been awarded more than $9 million in competitive funding and has won 21 awards to date, and is currently a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator (L1). In addition to her research achievements, A/Prof Hasnain is a staunch advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in STEMM. She serves on the Australian STEMM Equity Advocacy Team, the EDI Committee at Mater Research, and holds the position of Chair on the EDI Committee for the Australia and New Zealand Society for Immunology. Through her work, she is committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable environment for future generations of scientists.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE

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Michael is a trained Molecular Biologist who obtained his PhD from the University of Zürich (Switzerland).  In 2007, he joined the group of Prof Matthias Ernst at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) in Parkville as an Assistant Investigator and his work there aimed at dissecting the contributions of canonical Wnt/beta-catenin and Jak/Stat3 signalling pathways to GI tumourigenesis, before taking up a position at the newly opened Olivia-Newton-John Cancer Research Institute in 2015. His work  leverages complex genetically modified mouse strains and preclinical mouse models of gastric cancer to dissect the contributions of genes and signalling pathways to the genesis, maintenance and progression of gastric cancer with an aim of identifying therapeutic targets. His current interest focuses on two research themes investigating the role of tuft cells in the regulation of the innate immune system during gastric tumourigenesis and the role of the gastric cancer associated microbiota in tumour progression. Since my arrival in Australia in 2007, I have published close to 50 peer-reviewed articles and I’ve been awarded competitive funding from NHMRC, Cancer Council of Victoria, Tour de Cure and La Trobe University.

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

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Thomas completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, under the supervision of A/Prof Edward Behrens, where he studied mechanisms underlying genetic causes of T cell-mediated pathology and autoimmunity. His contributions in this area helped to inform current diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to treating rare paediatric diseases.

 Thomas joined Prof. Laura Mackay’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne in 2020, where he has focused on the development and regulation of tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells in tumours. His recent work in this space has unveiled distinct populations of resident T cells in tumours that are not uniformly targeted by current immunotherapeutic approaches. Future work aims to identify novel approaches to target these cells and synergise with current treatments, raising the ceiling of effective immune responses to cancer.

mRNA VICTORIA

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Dr Adrienne Grech is a published neuroscientist with a career spanning across consulting, university and government. She has successfully worked with the life sciences and biotech sector to access funding, develop innovative solutions and execute investment projects.

After leaving academia Adrienne joined the Government Incentives team at KPMG working closely with clients to access funding and other supports. As the national MedTechPharma Sector Lead, Adrienne was a key team member on innovation and investment projects.

Most recently Adrienne has worked in government across the Australian Medtech Manufacturing Centre and mRNA Victoria. Her roles in government have focused on supporting engagement, investment and partnerships to grow the Victorian innovation sector and creating an end-to-end RNA ecosystem to commercialise Victorian medical research innovations.

Adrienne is currently the A/Senior Scientific and Policy Advisor at mRNA Victoria.   

WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

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Dr Melinda Hardy received a PhD in Immunotherapy from the University of QLD. She is a human immunologist and senior research officer situated in the Coeliac Disease Research Lab at WEHI, Melbourne. She seeks to understand gluten induced immunity in coeliac disease, and her work has uncovered many features of the pathogenic gluten-specific T cells in both adult and paediatric coeliac disease. Her work is currently focused on understanding the acute symptom response that occurs in 80% of patients. Her findings have aided the design of clinical trial immunomonitoring tools currently in use in coeliac disease clinical trials, and also form the basis of a novel immune based diagnostic. She is currently working closely with pharmaceutical companies developing novel coeliac disease therapies. 

MONASH UNIVERSITY

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Professor Huntington is a NHMRC fellow and AAS Jacques Miller Medallist currently directing the Cancer Immunotherapy Laboratory at Monash University, Australia. He is an international opinion leader on natural killer (NK) cell biology and NK cell immunotherapy with notable contributions to: regulatory mechanisms of IL-15 signalling, identification of human and murine NK cell differentiation pathways and identification of multiple checkpoint in NK cell activation and tumour immunity. Professor Huntington leads a research program aimed at deciphering the regulatory networks that control NK cell immunity and a drug discovery program using cutting-edge in vivo screens for novel checkpoints in NK cell activation for targeting in cancer immunotherapy. Prof. Huntington is a company director, co-founder and chief scientific officer of oNKo-Innate Pty Ltd. 

WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

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Prof Naik is a graduate of the University of QLD (Microbiology & Biochemistry) and did his PhD with Prof. Ken Shortman on dendritic cell development at WEHI. It was here he gained an interest in single cell tracking and fate determination in biology and was awarded his PhD in 2006. Interested in the emerging technology of ‘cellular barcoding’ Prof Naik did his postdoc in the laboratory of Prof. Ton Schumacher at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, where he traced the single cell output of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in vivo. After returning to WEHI in 2013, he was later appointed as a Laboratory Head in the Immunology Division where his lab creates novel technologies and applies these using single cell and clonal systems biology. Prof Naik has made major contributions to haematopoiesis, immunology and cancer using these approaches. This has in turn led to several translational endeavours including next-generation Dendritic Cell Immunotherapy, and the correction of blood and immune disorders through stem cell editing and engineering.

MURDOCH CHILDREN'S RESEARCH INSTITUTE

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A/Prof Melanie Neeland is a team leader at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and an Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics. Her research explores the early life immune origins of respiratory diseases in children, with funding support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Sanofi/Regeneron Global Innovation Program and the Bella Tripp Foundation. Melanie’s work spans conditions such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, and suppurative lung disease, with recent focus on identifying biomarkers that predict the development of lung disease following bone marrow transplant in children. Melanie completed her PhD in immunology at Monash University in 2015, held a Visiting Fellowship at Stanford University Medical School in 2017 and established her independent research program at MCRI in 2020.

WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

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Dr O’ Reilly studied immunology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland and completed her PhD in the Department of Immunology at University College, London. Following post-doctoral training at the University of Cambridge, England, she joined the Walter and Eliza Institute of Medical Research with Prof. Andreas Strasser. During this time, she established the role of membrane and soluble FasL in apoptotic cell death and inflammation and developed a new model of gastric cancer. 

Currently Lorraine is a senior scientist based within the Inflammation Division at WEHI and her research program on inflammation-associated cancers has an oral cancer focus. She is investigating new imaging technologies with AI analysis for the early detection of oral cancer.  In addition she is also uncovering the relationship between inflammatory and cell death signalling pathways in oral cancer initiation and tumourigenesis whilst testing combinative small molecule (Smac Mimetics) and immune therapies for advanced disease.

BIONTECH

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John is a Senior Director with BioNTech Australia and has over 25 years of experience in the industry for development of manufacturing systems for vaccines and biotherapeutics in global markets. He has held senior technology leadership positions in Australian and Fortune 500 companies including CSL, Pfizer, and Zoetis and has worked extensively in the Asia Pacific and US regions. Prior to joining BioNTech, John headed up the CSIRO National Vaccine and Therapeutics Laboratory where he worked in partnership with leading medical researchers in the GMP manufacture of their investigational materials for human clinical studies. He holds a Bachelor in Applied Science, a Master in Biotechnology, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering awarded by the University of Queensland. He has also completed an MBA in Technology Management and is a champion for continuous improvement as applied in manufacturing systems and organizational processes and is a certified Six-Sigma Green Belt.

PETER MACCALLUM CANCER FOUNDATION

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Until recently Rob was co-head of the gastroenterology cancer program and head of the Differentiation and Transcription Laboratory at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He is a molecular biologist by training and specializing in transcriptional regulation. His career-long interest in the oncoprotein MYB began in New York and has continued to this day moving from biochemistry to clinical trials. He arguably remains the leader in the role of MYB in tumourigenesis. Over the last and a half decade and a half, he shifted his lab’s focus to the areas of tumour immunology, immune gene dysregulation and associated inflammation-mediated events that predispose to carcinogenesis. Rob is now semi-retired serving in consultancy roles and participating in on-going and planned clinical trials at Peter Mac.

He is a member of the lower GI MDM and continues to supervise surgeon-PhD students particularly with Surgical Oncology Head, Sandy Heriot. He has led the laboratory/translational aspects of several clinical trials. The first was in 2005 – a Phase II Trial of Thalidomide and Celecoxib in Multiple Myeloma and subsequently surgery trials CIGAR4, PERIPROTECT, MATCH and GI trials TARGOVAX-TGO-02, MYPHSIMO and AVEREC.

He is a Board Director and Company Secretary of the Australasian Gastrointestinal Trials Group an organization focused on clinical trial development and delivery.

His lab pioneered the use of organoids along with innovative immune function assays publishing the first use of mouse and human colorectal cancer organoids in Australia. Rob’s major disease expertise is CRC, peritoneal carcinomatosis, HPV-driven perineal squamous cell carcinomas (eg, anal, penile) and the rare cancer-adenoid cystic carcinoma. Recent developments in photodynamic agents combined with immunotherapies have been embraced to address a clinical gap in the management of anal and other SCCs.

MODERNA

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Felicia Pradera is the Director of Moderna’s Regional Research Centre and Strategic Alliances in Melbourne, where she leads their research-and-development collaboration strategy across the life-science ecosystem in Australia and the Indo-Pacific and represents Moderna on national innovation platforms.

With more than 20 years’ experience in cutting-edge research, collaboration, policy and product development, she has advised national and international governments in medical countermeasure (MCM) development, health security and pandemic response, most significantly briefing the United States National Security Council on emerging bio-threats in 2018. At the Defence Science and Technology Group she led MCM product development and served for five years as Australia’s National Lead; and Science and Technology Lead to the Quadrilateral Medical Countermeasures Consortium, chairing it from 2023 to 2024. Concurrently, she was the Head of Health Security Systems Australia at DMTC Limited, a division that evolved from the national MCM program she established in 2015 whilst on secondment from DSTG. During the COVID-19 response she was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group, the whole-of-government Interdepartmental Committee, and the Science and Technology Representative to the Defence Committee.

Felicia holds a doctorate in Biotechnology from the Technical University of Berlin, a Master of Intellectual Property Law from Monash University and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from Murdoch University and the University of Melbourne respectively. She is a non-executive director of M:MBio Pty Ltd and ThirtyFiveBio Pty Ltd, sits on several national advisory bodies for health security, and has received awards for research collaboration and outstanding service to Defence science.