Research with Us
Researchers in the Doherty will work in one of world's top facilities for infection and immunity. Our researchers are world-renowned and include 14 chief investigators on five different Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grants. These grants are only awarded to the most outstanding Australian research projects, with around eight to ten awarded across all fields of medicine each year.
The Doherty’s researchers will collaborate closely with experts from other internationally respected organisations, including the Nossal Institute for Global Health and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. Through knowledge transfer and sharing resources our researchers will gain access to the latest data on a range of public health issues and work to translate this knowledge into novel approaches ready for further analysis by Doherty clinicians with the aim of discovering new treatments.
From bench to bedside and back to the laboratory the Doherty researchers and clinicians will work together to deliver outcomes based on the combination of basic science research, translational trials, and bedside care.
Our Research Questions
Our researchers ask basic scientific questions in a bid to unlock the secrets of how infections occur and how our bodies respond to them.
Our researchers are driven to understand how our bodies protect against and fight off infectious agents, in particular, bacteria and viruses. Every day they set out to further our knowledge about these potential killers by asking questions such as:
- How have bacteria and viruses evolved?
- What makes them strong?
- How do they mutate or shape-shift to avoid detection?
- Where do their weaknesses lie?
They also address basic questions like: why, in some circumstances does the immune system malfunction, generating autoimmune responses that attack harmless cells and proteins and cause diseases like multiple sclerosis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis? And how can we turn the immune system on to defend us better, or off if it is creating disease and suffering?
Boasting a natural curiosity, our researchers use: specialised laboratory technology, such as flow cytometry, genetically engineered microorganisms, proteins and antibodies; and supercomputing to understand more about how the immune system and infectious agents interact with each other.
Over tens of thousands of years microbes and humans have evolved in tandem; giving our immune systems enough time to adjust and respond to infectious disease threats. However, new and more virulent highly-adapted strains of infectious agents are now emerging at an escalated rate and we no longer have the luxury of thousands of years for our immune system to adapt and conquer these new threats to health. If we are to develop vaccines or genetically modified antibodies capable of slowing or eradicating new and emerging infectious agents we must remain committed to our pursuit of new scientific discovery.
Our research is funded by both public and private donors and is focused on improving the health and safety of all people. Our research objectives are to:
- Understand the development of an effective immune response to infectious agents;
- Investigate how cells of the immune system function;
- Define how microorganisms evolve, spread and cause disease;
- Develop new vaccines and therapies for fighting infectious diseases;
- Improve infectious disease clinical care; and
- Participate in global surveillance of existing and emerging infectious disease threats.
Latest Research
Some of the key projects being considered by our researchers are outlined below.
Close attention is being paid to how dendritic cells shape T cell responses. We’re asking questions around what different sub-sets of dendritic cells do during immune responses, how are they different and which T cells are being stimulated? More specifically, we are investigating whether there are resident T cells in the liver and if so, how can we use these to boost their activity? We aim to develop a vaccine for malaria as a result of this line of enquiry.
Another group aims to understand the basis of T cell specificity. By applying tools developed in-house we are identifying how the combination of T cell receptors and MHC Class 1 molecules help the immune system to switch on and kill infected cells and ignore healthy ones. In this way, we intend to improve HIV, Hepatitis C and transplant patient outcomes.
Members of the Doherty laboratory continue to understand more about the power of T cell memory. They are determining, validating and qualifying how the immune system responds and is regulated after vaccination. They hope to engineer an immune response to HIV that cannot be beaten by the virus. Our researchers are also working to help prolong the life of HIV+ patients by finding ways to build their immunity and prevent early aging and premature death from diseases like cancer, heart failure and diabetes.
Working in collaboration with the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) and the WHO Centre for Influenza in Australia, another research group is intensely focused on understanding how the influenza virus evolves and causes disease and which components of the virus influence the severity of the disease. Animal models and reverse genetics are used to understand mammalian immune responses to influenza.
This same group has access to high-containment PC 3 laboratories and studies how virulent strains of pathogenic avian influenza travels from the blood to brain and how the H5N1 strain migrates from birds to humans and other mammals. This work looks closely at how to stop the spread of influenza from the upper respiratory tract to other parts of the body. This group is also assisting the development of vaccines to protect against these infections through the creation of hybrid virus strains.
Our interest in bacterial pathogens is focused on identifying the virulence determinants of new pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella and Legionella. The aim of this research is to establish the biochemical and molecular basis of virulence and understand how these bacteria cause disease. We hope to uncover new host processes and structures that bacteria target when causing infection; with the aim of developing new agents to treat a range of bacterial infectious diseases.
Another lab in the area of bacteriology is collaborating with a group of international experts to find out why Golden Staph continues to cause serious disease in the community and understand how it has become so virulent that it cannot be managed by using current antibiotic treatments.
To read more about our research groups, visit the Department of Microbiology & Immunology’s website.