WEHI Postgraduate Seminar Series hosted by the Education Committee

Dr Danika Hill

Laboratory Head – Immunity division, WEHI

Would you get infected for science? How human challenge models are advancing vaccine development

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Some of the world’s most important pathogens infect only humans, making them remarkably difficult to study. For many of these infections, animal models are either unavailable or fail to accurately reproduce human disease and immunity. As a result, vaccine development can be slow, costly, and uncertain. One increasingly powerful solution is the controlled human infection model: carefully designed studies in which healthy adult volunteers are deliberately exposed to a pathogen under close medical supervision. These studies can provide unique insights into how infections take hold, why some people are protected, and which immune responses vaccines should aim to induce.

In this seminar, I will touch on the diverse range of human challenge models being used around the world and discuss how they are transforming our understanding of immunity to complex pathogens. Drawing on examples from our laboratory and others, I will highlight the scientific discoveries, practical applications, and ethical considerations that make human challenge studies a powerful tool for accelerating vaccine development.

Danika Hill is a Laboratory Head at WEHI where her research aims to transform vaccine development and develop novel therapies for infectious disease by advancing our understanding of the immune mechanisms and antigens that drive optimal immune responses. Dr Hill has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours) from the University of Adelaide, and a PhD from the University of Melbourne and WEHI. She undertook postdoctoral training at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge and Monash University. In 2023, Dr Hill established the Precision Vaccinology laboratory at Monash University before relocating the laboratory to WEHI in 2026.

All welcome!