Discovering better ways to detect and prevent diseases caused by bacterial pathogens of major global health importance.

Our focus is on bacterial pathogens of major global health importance, including Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) and Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus, “Strep A”).

Our focus

  • Investigating how infections can be best diagnosed and prevented with vaccines.
  • Discovering how these pathogens colonise, transmit and cause disease, including their interaction with other microbes.
  • Collaboration closely with clinicians, epidemiologists and immunologists, including in countries in the Asia-Pacific region, to facilitate translation and global impact.

Our research areas

Improve vaccine strategies in low-middle income settings by identifying

  • impact of vaccines in children and adults
  • optimal vaccination schedules
  • vaccine impact on antimicrobial resistance
  • improved vaccine strategies in humanitarian crisis settings
  • burden of pneumococcal disease in the Asia-Pacific.

Better diagnostics and disease surveillance using molecular microbiology

  • developing diagnostics for children with severe pneumonia
  • discovery of new serotypes and variants to inform vaccine and surveillance strategies
  • using genomics to understand antimicrobial resistance and the pneumococcal population structure.

Understanding the biology of bacterial pathogens and using laboratory and animal models to answer key questions for

  • bacterial-viral interactions
  • bacterial colonisation and carriage
  • bacterial transmission and disease.