Professor Fiona Russell

Biography:

Associate Professor Fiona Russell is a paediatrician with qualifications in public health and epidemiology. In particular she is interested in vaccination and completed her PhD evaluating alternative pneumococcal vaccination schedules in infants in Fiji, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She was awarded both the Chancellor and Dean's Prize for PhD Excellence by The University of Melbourne. The findings informed the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) schedules in the latest WHO PCV position paper.

She has undertaken consultancies for WHO, UNICEF, and Australian Aid in the Asia-Pacific region, and Africa on the disease burden of vaccine preventable diseases, provided technical advice of new vaccine introduction in the region, and has written national child health policies to accelerate progress towards Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) four and five – to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health.

A/Prof Russell was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2001 and the Early in Career Researcher from the Public Health Association of Australia in 2008. Until recently she was based in Hanoi, and prior to that she lived in Fiji.

Awards:

2007: Quintiles Fellowship, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 2007
2008- 2009: National Health and Medical Research Council Scholarship
2011: Cottrell Fellowship, Royal Australasian College of Physicians
2012: 2015: NHMRC Early in Career Fellowship, NHMRC
2012: Chancellor's and Dean's Prize for Excellence in a PhD thesis, The University of Melbourne
2016: Research Fellowship, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Research:

Associate Professor Fiona Russell's interest is evidence-based decision making for child health interventions in low-income countries. She partners with local Ministries of Health, WHO, and local research institutions. In 2011, she undertook a global review on the age distribution of pneumococcal disease which was used to update the latest WHO PCV position paper.

She currently leads the New Vaccine Evaluation Project (NVEP), evaluating the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), the rotavirus vaccine, funded by the Australian Government. NVEP is also evaluating reduced dose HPV vaccine schedules, and is evaluating the effect of HPV vaccine on infection rates in Fiji. She also leads the Bill & Melinda Gates funded study assessing the effect of social contact behaviour on pneumococcal carriage.

In Laos, she leads the Gavi Alliance funded project documenting the impact of PCV on pneumonia and pneumococcal carriage.

In Vietnam and Ethiopia A/Prof Russell is evaluating a screening tool to identify neonates at high risk of mortality and prematurity.

She leads a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded study to demonstrate how pneumococcal carriage surveillance in children with pneumonia can be used to estimate the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine coverage required to show evidence of herd immunity. This study is based in Laos, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea and will provide information for national planners to maximize the effectiveness of their immunization programs.

Projects:

Projects:
PneuCAPTIVE- Nasopharyngeal carriage surveillance in children hospitalised with respiratory illness or pneumonia to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine programs in Lao, Mongolia and PNG
Modelling the Effect of Social Contact on Pneumococcal Carriage
New Vaccine Evaluation Project, Fiji
Evaluation of the impact of national pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction in Lao PDR
Pneumococcal Vaccinology Centre for Research Excellence
Vietnam reduced dose pneumococcal clinical trial
Examination of the impact of alternative pneumococcal vaccination schedules on immunological memory and nasopharyngeal carriage in infants 3-5 years of age, Fiji
CIE on the NHMRC Pneumococcal Vaccinology Centre for Research Excellence
Evaluating a screening tool to identify neonates at high risk of mortality and prematurity in Ethiopia
Immunology of young children with thalassaemia and children at-risk of malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies

Nguyen HT, Khu TKD, Le TTH, Thomas EG, Lee K, Russell FM. Foot length, chest circumference, and mid upper arm circumference are good predictors of low birth weight and prematurity in ethnic minority newborns in Vietnam: a hospital-based observational study. PLoS One 2015 Nov 10;10(11):e0142420.

Toh ZQ, Licciardi PV, Fong J, Garland SM, Tabrizi SN, Russell FM, Mulholland EK. Reduced dose human papillomavirus vaccination: An update of the current state-of-the-art. Vaccine. 2015 (15): 01106-8.

Law I, Fong JJ, Buadromo EM, Samuela J, Patel MS, Garland SM, Mulholland EK, Russell FM. The high burden of cervical cancer in Fiji, 2004-07. Sex Health. 2013 Apr;10(2):171-8

Licciardi PV, Balloch A, Russell FM, Nahm MH, Mulholland K, Tang ML. Pneumococcal glycoconjugate vaccines produce antibody responses that strongly correlate with function. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2011 May;10(5):393

Russell FM, Carapetis JR, Burton RL, Lin J, Licciardi PV, Balloch A, Tikoduadua L, Waqatakirewa L, Cheung YB, Tang ML, Nahm MH, Mulholland EK. Opsonophagocytic activity following a reduced dose 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine infant primary series and 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine at 12 months of age. Vaccine. 2011 Jan 10;29(3):535-44

Russell FM, Carapetis JR, Satzke C, Tikoduadua L, Waqatakirewa L, Chandra R, Seduadua A, Oftadeh S, Cheung YB, Gilbert GL, Mulholland EK. Pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage following reduced doses of a 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and a 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine booster. Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2010 Dec;17(12):1970-6

Satzke C, Seduadua A, Chandra R, Carapetis JR, Mulholland EK, Russell FM. Comparison of citrated human blood, citrated sheep blood, and defibrinated sheep blood Mueller-Hinton agar preparations for antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates. J Clin Microbiol. 2010 Oct;48(10):3770-2

Russell FM, Carapetis JR, Tikoduadua L, Paeds D, Chandra R, Seduadua A, Satzke C, Pryor J, Buadromo E, Waqatakirewa L, Mulholland EK. Invasive pneumococcal disease in Fiji: clinical syndromes, epidemiology, and the potential impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2010 Sep;29(9):870-2

Russell FM, Carapetis JR, Balloch A, Licciardi PV, Jenney AW, Tikoduadua L, Waqatakirewa L, Pryor J, Nelson J, Byrnes GB, Cheung YB, Tang ML, Mulholland EK. Hyporesponsiveness to re-challenge dose following pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine at 12 months of age, a randomized controlled trial. Vaccine. 2010 Apr 26;28(19):3341-9

Jenney A, Tikoduadua L, Buadromo E, Barnes G, Kirkwood CD, Boniface K, Bines J, Mulholland K, Russell F. The burden of hospitalised rotavirus infections in Fiji. Vaccine. 2009 Nov 20;27 Suppl 5:F108-11

Jin P, Kong F, Xiao M, Oftadeh S, Zhou F, Liu C, Russell F, Gilbert GL. First report of putative Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 6D among nasopharyngeal isolates from Fijian children. J Infect Dis. 2009 Nov 1;200(9):1375-80

Russell FM, Balloch A, Tang ML, Carapetis JR, Licciardi P, Nelson J, Jenney AW, Tikoduadua L, Waqatakirewa L, Pryor J, Byrnes GB, Cheung YB, Mulholland EK. Immunogenicity following one, two, or three doses of the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. Vaccine. 2009 Sep 18;27(41):5685-91

Funding: