Prof Sharon Lewin

Director
Peter Doherty Institute
University of Melbourne

sharon.lewin@unimelb.edu.au

Contract research opportunities

  • HIV viral isolation and culture for clinical and basic research
  • Quantification of HIV viral RNA and DNA in patient samples
  • Establishing and maintaining prospective clinical cohorts
  • PBMC isolation and storage using leukapharesis
  • Lymph node biopsy …
    and cell extraction
  • Specialised flow cytometry
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Latest News

  • In January 2019, Professor Lewin was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia Awards on Australia Day
  • Professor Lewin was re-appointed as Chair, Health Translation Advisory Committee for the National Health and Medical Research Council (2019-222) and member of the Governing Council of the NHMRC

Research Activities

Professor Sharon Lewin is the inaugural Director of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health (Royal Melbourne Hospital) and Professor of Medicine, The University of Melbourne. Professor Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist. She is a consultant physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Alfred Hospital, and an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow.

Professor Lewin's laboratory focuses on both clinical trials and laboratory based pathogenesis studies. Her laboratory investigates the mechanisms of why HIV persists on antiretroviral therapy and the development of latency reversing and silencing agents. She is the principal investigator of multiple novel early phase clinical trials to eliminate latency. She has also had a long standing interest in hepatitis B virus and HIV-HBV co-infection, understanding accelerated liver disease in HIV-HBV co-infection and understanding the immune response to HBV.

Her laboratory is actively involved in developing novel therapeutics and diagnostics for COVID-19 and in biobanking and specimen storage for observational interventional studies for COVID-19.

Techniques/Expertise

  • Clinical trials 
  • HIV viral culture, quantification, infection 
  • In vitro models of HIV latency 
  • Analysis ex vivo of patient cells collected by leukopharesis and lymph node biopsy
  • Multiparameter flow cytometry including high speed cell sorting 
  • Quantification of virus persistence on ART including PCR based assays and culture
  • Integration site analyses
  • HBV in vitro models 
  • Virology of SARS CoV2
  • Gene editing strategies for antiviral therapeutics
  • Establishing and maintaining prospective clinical cohorts

Collaborations

HIV (National):
A/Prof Melissa Churchill (Burnet Inst, Melbourne)
Prof Damian Purcell (Doherty Inst, University of Melbourne)
A/Prof Edwina Wright (Monash Uni, Alfred Health, Melbourne)
Prof Jennifer Hoy (Monash Uni, Alfred Health, Melbourne)
A/Prof Sarah Palmer (Westmead Millenium Inst, Sydney)
Prof Tony Cunningham (Westmead Millenium Inst, Sydney)
A/Prof David Booth (Westmead Millenium Inst, Sydney)
Prof Miles Davenport (University of NSW, Sydney)
Prof Martyn French (University of Western Australia, Perth)
Professor Simon Mallal (Murdoch University, Perth)
HIV (International):
Prof Steve Deeks (UCSF, San Fransisco, USA)
Prof Mike McCune (UCSF, San Francisco, USA)
Dr Afam Okoye (Oregon Health Sciences Univ, Portland, USA)
Dr Jake Estes (National Cancer Inst, Frederick, USA)
Dr Nicolas Chomont (U. Montreal, Montreal, Canada)
Dr Remi Fromentin (U. Montreal, Montreal, Canada)
Dr Thomas Rasmussen (Aarhus Uni, Aarhus, Denmark)
Dr Timothy Henrich (Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge, UK)
Prof Philip Goulder (U. Oxford, London, UK)
Prof Thumbi Ndungu (U. of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa)
Dr Reena Rajasuriar (U. Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Adeeba Kamarulzaman (U. Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
HBV (National):
Dr Joe Sasadeusz (VIDS, Royal Melbourne Hospital at the Doherty Institute, Melbourne)
HBV (International):
Dr Anchalee Avahingsanon (HIV Netherlands Australia Thailand Collaboration, Thai Red Cross, Bangkok, Thailand)
A/Prof Kiat Ruxrungtham (HIV Netherlands Australia Thailand Collaboration, Thai Red Cross, Bangkok, Thailand)
Dr Chloe Thio (Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, USA)
Dr Angela Kashuba (University of North Carolina, Durham, NC)
Dr Jake Estes (National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD)
Industry:

Disease Models

HIV Latency
HIV-HBV co-infection
DC-T-cell models
Liver and respiratory organoids

Other Lab Members

Laboratory Head:
Prof Sharon Lewin
Senior Scientists:
Ajantha Rhodes (Clinical Operations Manager & Laboratory Manager; Head, Virology Core)
Dr Judy Chang (Research Systems Administrator - Clinical Research; Head, Immunology Core)
Dr Jennifer Audsley (Senior Research Fellow – Clinical Research)
Post-doctoral Fellows:
Dr Wei Zhao (Post-doctoral Research Fellow)
Dr Jennifer Zerbato (Post-doctoral Research Fellow)
Dr Chris Chiu (Post-doctoral Research Fellow)
Dr Celine Gubser (Post-doctoral Research Fellow)
Research Assistants:
PhD Students (Uni Melb):
Ms Rachel Pascoe
Ms Paula Cevaal
Mr Haoming Liu
Mr Jared Stern
Mr Abdalla Ali
PhD Students (Monash):
Dr Kasha Singh (Clinician researcher)
Dr Jill Lau (Clinician researcher)
Visiting/Honorary Clinician Scientists:
Associate Professor Paul Cameron
Associate Professor Edwina Wright
Associate Professor Joe Sasadeusz
Dr James McMahon
Research support staff:
Dr Jasminka Sterjovski (Research Manager)
Barb Scher (Clinical Trials Liaison Officer)
Dr Catherine Kennedy
Dr Michael Roche
Danielle Fong
Carolin Trumpach
Youry Kim

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