Professor Flavia Huygens
Professor Flavia HuygensProfessor Flavia Huygens is Director of the Centre for Immunology and Infection Control. A molecular-microbiologist with a PhD in Medical Microbiology, Flavia’s innovative and entrepreneurial research is founded in molecular diagnostics and therapeutics to diagnose, treat and prevent infectious diseases. Flavia is also currently the Associate Director (QIMR-Berghofer) at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI).
Professor Ken Beagley
Ken Beagley is Professor of Immunology at QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), and is our Program Leader for Immunology. He received his PhD in 1984 from the University of Otago, New Zealand, received post-doctoral training at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) and has held faculty positions at UAB and the University of Newcastle before joining QUT in 2007. He is an internationally recognized reproductive and mucosal immunologist with expertise in chlamydial disease and chlamydial vaccine development, male infertility, herpes vaccine development and marsupial immunology.
Associate Professor Makrina Totsika
Makrina Totsika is our Program Leader for Infection Control. She completed a Wellcome Trust funded PhD in 2007 at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and held post-doctoral positions at the University of Queensland before receiving a DECRA from the Australian Research Council in 2013 and joining QUT in 2014. Her work is at the forefront of novel antimicrobial drug research and development, which is promising to revolutionise the way we treat bacterial infections that are no longer treatable with antibiotics. She is the recipient of the Australian Society for Microbiology 2018 Frank Fenner Award and winner of the 2016 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year award by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.
Professor Kirsten Spann
Professor Kirsten Spann is our Program Leader for Environmental Exposure and Control. She is a research leader in the field of respiratory viral infections and in particular the interplay between viruses and the immune responses that underlie disease pathogenesis. Kirsten graduated with a PhD at the University of Queensland in 1997, and has conducted research with the CSIRO and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the U.S., as well as starting her own research group at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane focusing on research pertaining to respiratory viral infections.