Research Activities

2019 Update:
•Poultry are a important source of protein (meat and eggs) worldwide•Poultry diseases have significant impact on production and welfare of flocks•Poultry are an important reservoir for transmission of pathogens to humans•Live-attenuated vaccines are used to prevent important poultry diseases and improve food safety.Biopropertiesis a major producer of poultry vaccines.•New methods are required to assess the efficacy of new vaccines in development.•This Honours project will investigate chicken immune responses to vaccination, and develop an assay to detect IgA responses to vaccination in chickens of different ages.Contact Anna Walduck for details.

Host-Pathogen Interactions Laboratory
We are interested in the interactions between host and pathogen in acute and chronic infections.
Including: 
Severe sepsis- Sepsis has a high mortality rate, there is an urgent need for adjunct therapies to improve patient outcomes. We are investigating immunological responses in patients with sepsis and looking at the potentially positive effects of low dose aspirin. This study is supported by experiments in animal and in vitro models of sepsis and biofilm related infections.  

Understanding inflammation in the stomach to guide development of new vaccines against Helicobacter pylori. This bacterium infects up to half of the world population and causes chronic, potentially fatal disease. We are investigating the complex regulation of inflammation in the stomach to understand how to better design vaccines.  

Novel Wound dressings using silver nano-structured fabrics.
In collaboration with Prof. Vipul Bansal's group ( RMIT) we are developing wound infection models to test novel wound dressings based on TCNQ. These fabrics have strong anti-microbial properties and are predicted to

Research Keywords

Researching in the following areas: Helicobacter, Host-pathogen interactions, Sepsis, Vaccine development, Poultry vaccines