A/Professor Catherine Satzke

Biography:

Dr Satzke obtained her PhD in molecular microbiology from The University of Melbourne in 2007. She then established a microbiological research laboratory at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute within the Pneumococcal Research Group led by Prof Kim Mulholland.

Dr Satzke led a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which involved over 20 international collaborators. She has since attracted further funds to establish two serotype reference centres, facilitating vaccine impact studies in Asia. She led the update of World Health Organization (WHO) standards for pneumococcal carriage studies and made important contributions to studies in Fiji, leading to vaccination introduction.

Dr Satzke has been an investigator on grants totalling $39.7 million, notably $3.1 million as co-principal investigator on a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant. Dr Satzke received the inaugural veski inspiring women fellowship (2015-), the prestigious international Robert Austrian Research award (2012), has been an invited speaker at six international conferences and co-organised a WHO meeting.

Dr Satzke has published in journals including PLOS Medicine, Lancet, Vaccine and PLOS Pathogens. She currently supervises two post-doctoral researchers, five research assistants, one administrator, two PhD and one Honours student, and regularly hosts Masters students. Dr Satzke was named Murdoch Childrens' supervisor of the year in 2013.

Awards:

2015: veski inspiring women fellowship; the inaugural inspiring women fellowships, funded by the Victorian Government through the Office of the Lead Scientist
2012: Robert Austrian Award in Pneumococcal Vaccinology, prestigious young investigator award
2011: Travel award, CASS Foundation

Research:

Dr Satzke enjoys collaborating with researchers from both developed and developing countries, and working with a laboratory-based research team to answer interesting microbiological questions with clinical impact.

Dr Satzke's research explores the relationship between pneumococcal carriage and vaccination. She led the PneuCarriage project which identified the best pneumococcal serotyping method, including the ability to detect multiple serotype carriage. This international project was funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and based at Murdoch Childrens. Using additional funding from the Foundation and Murdoch Childrens, the two top-performing methods have been established in Melbourne and South Africa, and will be used to identify their utility in measuring vaccine impact over traditional methods.

As well as leading the microbiological research for an expanding program of work centred on vaccine impact studies in Fiji, Lao PDR and Mongolia, Dr Satzke contributes to vaccine trials in Vietnam, and carriage studies in Indonesia. She investigates the impact of environmental factors on pneumococcal gene expression, colonisation and disease; the effect of pneumococcal vaccination on ear disease, pneumonia and transmission using in vivo models; interaction of pneumococci and viruses; and the differences in pneumococcal gene expression in carriage and disease states.

Projects:

PneuCarriage follow-up study 'Monitoring pneumococcal carriage and vaccine impact'
Whole-cell vaccine program
Pneumococcal gene expression – impact of environmental factors, and identifying the differences between carriage and disease states
Vaccine impact studies in Fiji and Lao PDR
Vietnam reduced dose pneumococcal clinical trial and phase IV study

Satzke C, Dunne EM, Porter BD, Klugman KP, Mulholland EK; PneuCarriage project group. The PneuCarriage Project: A Multi-Centre Comparative Study to Identify the Best Serotyping Methods for Examining Pneumococcal Carriage in Vaccine Evaluation Studies. PLoS Med. 2015 Nov 17;12(11):e1001903. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001903.

Boelsen LK, Dunne EM, Lamb KE, Bright K, Cheung YB, Tikoduadua L, Russell FM, Mulholland EK, Licciardi PV, Satzke C. Long-term impact of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination on nasopharyngeal carriage in children previously vaccinated with various pneumococcal conjugate vaccine regimes. Vaccine. 2015 Oct 13;33(42):5708-14. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.07.059.

Sung V, Hiscock H, Tang ML, Mensah FK, Nation ML, Satzke C, Heine RG, Stock A, Barr RG, Wake M. Treating infant colic with the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri : double blind, placebo controlled randomised trial. BMJ. 2014 Apr 1;348:g2107. doi: 10.1136/bmj.g2107.

Satzke C, Turner P, Virolainen-Julkunen A, Adrian PV, Antonio M, Hare KM, Henao-Restrepo AM, Leach AJ, Klugman KP, Porter BD, Sá-Leão R, Scott JA, Nohynek H, O'Brien KL; WHO Pneumococcal Carriage Working Group. Standard method for detecting upper respiratory carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae : updated recommendations from the World Health Organization, Pneumococcal Carriage Working Group. Vaccine. 2013 Dec 17;32(1):165-79. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.08.062.

Pell CL, Williams MJ, Dunne EM, Porter BD, Satzke C. Silica Desiccant Packets for storage and transport of Streptococcus pneumoniae and other clinically relevant species. PLoS ONE 8(8): e72353. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072353.

Dunne EM, Marshall JL, Baker CA, Manning J, Gonis G, Danchin MH, Smeesters PR, Satzke C, Steer AC. Detection of group A streptococcal pharyngitis by quantitative PCR, BMC Infect Dis. 2013 Jul 11;13(1):312. [Epub ahead of print], PMID: 23844865.

Dunne EM, Smith-Vaughan HC, Robins-Browne RM, Mulholland EK, Satzke C. Nasopharyngeal microbial interactions in the era of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination. Vaccine. 2013 May 1;31(19):2333-42. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.03.024. Epub 2013 Mar 19.

Ortika BD, Habib M, Dunne EM, Porter BD, Satzke C. Production of latex agglutination reagents for pneumococcal serotyping. BMC Res Notes 2013 Feb 5;6:49.

Mulholland EK, Satzke C. Serotype replacement after pneumococcal vaccination. Lancet. 2012 Apr 14;379(9824):1387et

Licciardi PV, Toh ZQ, Wong S-S, Dunne EM, Mulholland EK, Tang M, Robins-Browne RM, Satzke C. Protecting against pneumococcal disease: Critical interactions between probiotics and the airway microbiome. PLoS Pathog . 2012 Jun;8(6):e1002652. Epub 2012 Jun 7.

Dunne EM, Manning J, Russell FM, Robins-Browne RM, Mulholland EK, Satzke C. The effect of pneumococcal vaccination on nasopharyngeal carriage of S. pneumoniae, M. catarrhalis, S. aureus, and H. influenzae in Fijian children. J Clin Microbiol. 2012 Mar;50(3):1034-8. Epub 2011 Dec 14

Dunne EM, Ong EK, Moser R, Siba P, Phuanukoonnon S, Greenhill A, Robins-Browne RM, Mulholland EK, Satzke C. 2011. Multilocus sequence typing of Streptococcus pneumoniae using mass spectrometry, J Clin Microbiol. 49(11):3756-60

Funding: