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- Alistair Brown
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- A multi-pronged approach to targeting myeloproliferative neoplasms
- A new paradigm of machine learning-based structural variant detection
- A whole lot of junk or a treasure trove of discovery?
- Advanced imaging interrogation of pathogen induced NETosis
- Analysing the metabolic interactions in brain cancer
- Atopic dermatitis causes and treatments
- Boosting the efficacy of immunotherapy in lung cancer
- Building a cell history recorder using synthetic biology for longitudinal patient monitoring
- Characterisation of malaria parasite proteins exported into infected liver cells
- Deciphering the heterogeneity of the tissue microenvironment by multiplexed 3D imaging
- Defining the mechanisms of thymic involution and regeneration
- Delineating the molecular and cellular origins of liver cancer to identify therapeutic targets
- Developing computational methods for spatial transcriptomics data
- Developing drugs to block malaria transmission
- Developing models for prevention of hereditary ovarian cancer
- Developing statistical frameworks for analysing next generation sequencing data
- Development and mechanism of action of novel antimalarials
- Development of novel RNA sequencing protocols for gene expression analysis
- Discoveries in red blood cell production and function
- Discovering epigenetic silencing mechanisms in female stem cells
- Discovery and targeting of novel regulators of transcription
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Dissecting mechanisms of cytokine signalling
- Doublecortin-like kinases, drug targets in cancer and neurological disorders
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Epigenetics – genome wide multiplexed single-cell CUT&Tag assay development
- Exploiting cell death pathways in regulatory T cells for cancer immunotherapy
- Exploiting the cell death pathway to fight Schistosomiasis
- Finding treatments for chromatin disorders of intellectual disability
- Functional epigenomics in human B cells
- How do nutrition interventions and interruption of malaria infection influence development of immunity in sub-Saharan African children?
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Improving therapy in glioblastoma multiforme by activating complimentary programmed cell death pathways
- Innovating novel diagnostic tools for infectious disease control
- Integrative analysis of single cell RNAseq and ATAC-seq data
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigation of a novel cell death protein
- Malaria: going bananas for sex
- Mapping spatial variation in gene and transcript expression across tissues
- Mechanisms of Wnt secretion and transport
- Multi-modal computational investigation of single-cell communication in metastatic cancer
- Nanoparticle delivery of antibody mRNA into cells to treat liver diseases
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Organoid-based discovery of new drug combinations for bowel cancer
- Organoid-based precision medicine approaches for oral cancer
- Removal of tissue contaminations from RNA-seq data
- Reversing antimalarial resistance in human malaria parasites
- Role of glycosylation in malaria parasite infection of liver cells, red blood cells and mosquitoes
- Screening for novel genetic causes of primary immunodeficiency
- Single-cell ATAC CRISPR screening – Illuminate chromatin accessibility changes in genome wide CRISPR screens
- Spatial single-cell CRISPR screening – All in one screen: Where? Who? What?
- Statistical analysis of single-cell multi-omics data
- Structural and functional analysis of epigenetic multi-protein complexes in genome regulation
- Structural basing for Wnt acylation
- Structure, dynamics and impact of extra-chromosomal DNA in cancer
- Targeted deletion of disease-causing T cells
- Targeting cell death pathways in tissue Tregs to treat inflammatory diseases
- The cellular and molecular calculation of life and death in lymphocyte regulation
- The role of hypoxia in cell death and inflammation
- The role of ribosylation in co-ordinating cell death and inflammation
- Understanding Plasmodium falciparum invasion of red blood cells
- Understanding cellular-cross talk within a tumour microenvironment
- Understanding the genetics of neutrophil maturation
- Understanding the roles of E3 ubiquitin ligases in health and disease
- Unveiling the heterogeneity of small cell lung cancer
- Using combination immunotherapy to tackle heterogeneous brain tumours
- Using intravital microscopy for immunotherapy against brain tumours
- Using nanobodies to understand malaria invasion and transmission
- Using structural biology to understand programmed cell death
- Validation and application of serological markers of previous exposure to malaria
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Centre for Global Disease and Health

- Our work: Transforming health for the poorest people
- Our goals
- Our approach
- The problem
- The solution
- Our projects
- Our international partners
- Our team
- Contact us
The WEHI Centre for Global Disease and Health discovers and develops innovative solutions to some of the biggest health challenges affecting the world’s poorest populations.
The centre brings together teams from across WEHI who work on problems affecting the health of billions of people living in low- and middle-income countries and communities.
Our scientists seek to uncover basic mechanisms of disease, translate these into new treatments, diagnostics or health policies, and test these solutions in the field in partnership with our colleagues overseas.
We bring a unique “bench to community” approach to a diverse range of problems, including infectious diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV-1 and COVID-19), nutrition (anaemia, vitamin D deficiency), child growth and development, and cancers.
Our work: Transforming health for the poorest people
assessing iron supplementation to prevent anaemia
in Bangladesh.
People living in low- and middle-income countries and communities experience risks from both communicable (infectious) and non-communicable diseases, which place them at increased risk of illness, poor health outcomes and early death.
Conditions which are common in higher income countries such as Australia (for example cancer, diabetes and heart disease) are also common in low-income countries, but available diagnostics and treatments are limited.
People in lower income settings may also face conditions that are relatively less common in wealthier settings. These include malaria, tuberculosis and other infections that cause a wide range of diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia; severe anaemia; risks to mother and baby during pregnancy; poor growth (stunting); and sub-optimal neurodevelopment.
Medical advances and improved access to health care have seen improvements in the health of people in low-income countries but progress remains slower than it should be. New threats such as the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and food shortages threaten to reverse recent gains.
The WEHI Centre for Global Disease and Health aims to improve the health of people living around the world through discovery of basic mechanisms of disease and by finding solutions to optimise health.
Our goals
- To understand the biological basis for infectious and non-communicable diseases that particularly afflict people living in low and middle income settings.
- To discover new ways of diagnosing, preventing, treating and even eradicating these diseases, and identifying ways to improve health and wellbeing for people living in low and middle income settings.
- To translate our findings by influencing health policy through generating high quality evidence, to ensure people living in low and middle income settings have access to the best quality approaches to health care.
- To train the next generation of researchers, including those from low income settings, to build future health and medical research workforce capability locally.
- To establish and strengthen partnerships between Australian and international researchers, especially researchers based in the Asia-Pacific region, and develop these relationships to achieve our goals of improving health for people across the world.
Our approach
The WEHI Centre for Global Disease and Health undertakes research to improve health and wellbeing for people and populations around the world using a multi-disciplinary approach that bridges basic, laboratory discovery science studies to well-designed cohort studies and global clinical trials.
A particular focus lies in leveraging cutting-edge genomic, immunological and neurodevelopmental assessment tools into population-based studies with the aim of making both high-impact discoveries about disease mechanisms, as well as providing evidence for interventions that aim to improve global health.
Our international studies involve deep collaborations with local partners and place high priority on local capacity building and training. Our highly-collaborative work involves the establishment of internal and external partnerships to meet specific research challenges.
We are committed to efficient scientific translation of new discoveries to novel treatments or prevention strategies. We also regularly contribute to World Health Organization policies by providing evidence and expert contributions to guideline processes.
The problem
Although the majority of the world’s population live in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and communities, their key health problems receive only a small proportion of research attention and investment.
Infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, or respiratory infections including COVID-19 continue to place a heavy burden, made worse by increasing antimicrobial resistance. But most LMIC populations have also seen a dramatic rise in non-communicable disease burden, such as nutritional deficiencies and cancer.
The solution
health workers at the Papua New Guinea Institute of
Medical Research
Addressing the biggest health challenges affecting the world’s poorest populations not only requires strengthening health systems and better application of existing interventions, but specific discovery research programs aimed at developing new, cost-effective tools targeted specifically at LMIC health problems.
The WEHI Centre for Global Disease and Health team comprises a multidisciplinary group of researchers with basic science skills in molecular biology, molecular parasitology, human immunology, drug discovery, genomics, epigenetics and microbiome analyses.
Our expertise also includes diagnostic test development, clinical and epidemiological studies including large randomised controlled field trials and cohort studies, as well as policy development with organisations such as the World Health Organization.
Our projects
A blood test to detect recent malaria infections – Mueller Lab
We are developing serological markers of recent exposure to P. vivax malaria infections to aid elimination of this disease. Antibodies can detect not only current but also recent infections. People that have anti-P. vivax antibodies are thus likely to carry dormant parasites in their livers, which means they are at high risk of experiencing relapsing infection.
In samples from cohort studies conducted in various P. vivax endemic regions around the world, we have validated a signature of antibodies to a small panel of 4-8 antigens that can detect recent exposure with high sensitivity and specificity. This signature is the basis for the ongoing development of both high-throughput and point-of-care vivax sero-diagnostic assays.
The intention is to use these assays for a novel anti-vivax intervention called P. vivax Serological Testing and Treatment (PvSeroTAT), where people living in areas with risk of P. vivax transmission are screened using our sero-diagnostic exposure markers. If positive, they are then treated with a drug regimen that will effectively treat both asexual bloodstage and dormant liverstage parasites.
Our modelling studies predict that PvSeroTAT will result in significant reduction in P. vivax risk and thus could assist countries in accelerating towards P. vivax elimination. Clinical trials of PvSeroTAT are commencing in both Southeast Asia and Africa.
Project team
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Dr Rhea Longley
- Dr Julie Healer
- Dr Ramin Mazhari
- Dr Emily Eriksson
- Kenneth Wu
- Macie Lamont
Early diagnostics to detect latent tuberculosis – Coussens Lab
Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading bacterial cause of death globally, with an estimated 10 million people developing TB annually, including 1 million children. Transmitted by aerosol, this slow-growing bacterium causes a chronic infection that can persist for many years without developing into disease (often called latent TB, estimated at 1.7 billion people in 2018). For roughly five to 15 per cent of infected people, TB develops into a chronic inflammatory disease, destroying the architecture of the organ it infects.
The lack of a diagnostic test that can identify who is currently infected and – most importantly – who will develop disease is a major challenge for TB control. This test is critical to target preventative therapy to those most at need and limit the cycle of transmission and disease.
We are combining the use of multiple high-resolution cellular profiling technologies (RNA-sequencing, spectral cytometry, DNA methylation profiling) to identify differences in immune cell function and the DNA changes which govern these differences, to guide the development of novel blood biomarkers of TB infection and disease risk.
Working with collaborators at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, we are analysing samples collected in two long-term studies tracking 450 adults and 1600 children living in communities with one of the highest rates of TB in the world. The research aims to identify individuals with early stages of infection and those who develop disease.
By identifying immune cell markers of infection and disease risk, our goal is to develop these into novel diagnostics that we can use to screen individuals in high-risk communities to receive preventive antibiotic therapies. Understanding the immune mechanisms that lead to disease risk we will also allow us to develop better long-term therapies for prevention as well as better treatments for patients to resolve TB disease and improve their long-term outcomes.
Project team
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Dylan Sheerin
- Dr George Ashdown
- Rachel Evans
- Associate Professor Matt Ritchie
- Dr Quentin Gouil
Collaborators
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases in Africa (CIDRI-Africa)
- University of Cape Town
- University College London
- Boston University
- Queen Mary University of London
Improving maternal and child health – Pasricha Lab
Anaemia and undernutrition is very common in low and middle income countries, especially in pregnancy and in young children. We are undertaking a program of large randomised controlled trials in rural Bangladesh and Malawi to assess new solutions for anaemia control with the goal of improving maternal and child health, including pregnancy outcomes, maternal wellbeing, infection risk, and child growth and development.
The goal is to develop evidence (including health economic evidence) of the role for interventions in preventing anaemia and improving growth and neurodevelopment in low income settings, as well as to develop new insights into the physiology of iron metabolism in infancy and during pregnancy in people living in low income settings.
We are conducting two large trials of iron interventions in infants (BRISC, IRMA), which aim to discover if these therapies can improve child neurodevelopment and allow every child to reach their full potential. We are also leading three trials in pregnancy to assess whether modern intravenous iron formulations can improve maternal health and wellbeing (during pregnancy and in the postpartum), improve the safety of delivery and provide short and longer term benefits for the baby (REVAMP, REVAMP-TT and EDIVA).
These trials are undertaken in partnership with international scientists, including Professor Kamija Phiri at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi, and Dr Jena Hamadani, at the International Center for Diarrheal Diseases Research, Bangladesh.
Collectively these trials have recruited over 8000 mothers or infants across the two regions. Samples from these trials are also analysed using cutting-edge platforms including 16S rRNA gene sequencing and shotgun metagenomics for assessment of the microbiome, CyTOF and flow cytometry to assess immune development and function, and molecular characterization, for example using high throughput RNA sequencing, in order to make new discoveries about the health of mothers and babies living in low income settings, to help develop the next generation of solutions.
Project Team
- Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Sabine Braat
- Dr Ricardo Ataide
- Dr Rebecca Harding
- Dr Eliza Davidson
- Dr Alistair Mclean
- Naomi Von Dinklage
- Dr Louise Randall
- Dr Md Imrul Hasan
- Phoebe Fitzpatrick
Our international partners
- Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
- Armauer Hansen Research Institute, Addis Adaba, Ethiopia
- Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology and Eijkman Oxford Clinical Research Unit, Jakarta, Indonesia
- Faculty or Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
- FIOCRUZ Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Foundation for Tropical Medicine Dr. Heitor Viera Dourado, Manaus, Brazil
- Institut Pasteur Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Institut Pasteur Madagascar, Antananarivo, Madagascar
- International Center for Diarrheal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b)
- PNG Institute of Medical Research, Papua New Guinea
- Training and Research Unit of Excellence, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi
- Universidad Gayetano Herredia, Lima, Peru
- Universidad San Francisco, Quito, Ecuador
- University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
- Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases in Africa (CIDRI-Africa), University of Cape Town
Our team
- Ivo Mueller
- Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Aaron Jex
- Leanne Robinson
- Anna Coussens
- Melanie Bahlo
- Alan Cowman
- Wai-Hong Tham
- Justin Boddey
- Chris Tonkin
- Marc Pellegrini
- Gemma Kelly
Contact us
Enquiries can be sent to Sant-Rayn Pasricha or Ivo Mueller.