Meet our new laboratory heads
Dr Danika Hill
Dr Danika Hill is an immunologist whose research focuses on translating fundamental insights in T and B cell biology into new vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases.
Having completed her PhD at WEHI, Dr Hill returns to the institute with a distinctive research vision shaped by her postdoctoral experience at the Babraham Institute (Cambridge, UK) and most recently Monash University, where she led a laboratory studying human immune responses to globally significant viral, bacterial and parasite pathogens and the immunopathology they cause.
Dr Hill’s laboratory at WEHI will focus on four connected areas: immune system function, vaccine design and development, antibody-based therapies and understanding the biological processes that cause disease.
Dr Jacki Heraud-Farlow
Dr Jacki Heraud-Farlow is an RNA biologist who studies how cells tell their own RNA apart from viral RNA, and how mistakes in this process can trigger inflammation and disease.
Joining WEHI from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Dr Heraud-Farlow is driven by a commitment to making a meaningful impact on the lives of people affected by rare, often devastating diseases.
Much of her focus has been to understand rare genetic disorders such as Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS), as a pathway to insight into a wider spectrum of inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases.
Her laboratory at WEHI will span fundamental discovery, disease modelling and development of RNA-based therapeutics, collectively aimed at translating RNA biology into meaningful impact for patients.
Dr Sylvie Callegari
Dr Sylvie Callegari is a mitochondrial biochemist whose research focuses on how cells keep their mitochondria healthy and what goes wrong in diseases like Parkinson’s disease. Dr Callegari has been a senior member of Professor David Komander’s laboratory at WEHI since 2019.
In 2025 Dr Callegari was lead author of a world-first discovery published in Science that revealed what a key Parkinson’s-linked protein – PINK1 – looks like and how it is activated. This breakthrough has opened exciting new paths for treatment research.
Dr Callegari will continue work on PINK1 in her new laboratory, establishing a research program focused on ubiquitin mediated mitochondrial quality control, with the goal of uncovering new therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. Her expertise will strengthen collaborations across WEHI from Parkinson’s disease to broader applications including cancer, inflammation and immunity.
