What inspired you to take on the role of director at the Snow Centre?
The Snow Centre presents a unique opportunity to conduct impactful immune research that addresses major health burdens and benefits patients. By leveraging the strong partnership between WEHI and RMH, we are in a fantastic position to translate basic science into real solutions for the key challenges faced by people with immune diseases.
It’s a real privilege to help further the vision and impact of this outstanding program.
What makes the Snow Centre unique?
The Snow Centre stands out for its vision to deploy breakthrough science to tackle areas of unmet need and leverages the unique partnership between WEHI and RMH. This collaboration enables the integration of world-class science, such as Professor Phil Hodgkin’s Cyton model, with leading clinical expertise.
Crucially, the centre’s generous funding overcomes the limitations of traditional models and makes truly transformative science possible, enabling us to bridge the gap between discovery and real patient impact in ways that few centres can achieve.
I feel incredibly fortunate to be building on the strong foundations laid by founding co-directors Professor Phil Hodgkin (WEHI) and Professor Jo Douglass AO (RMH), whose leadership and vision were key to establishing the centre. I am deeply grateful for their commitment and look forward to their continued contributions to the centre’s success.
You’ve been at WEHI for over two decades, what’s been your research focus?
I started at WEHI in 2003 as a PhD student in what was then called the Autoimmunity and Transplantation Division, aiming to identify the components of gluten that are toxic to people with coeliac disease.
Under the supervision of Dr Bob Anderson, now with Novoviah Pharmaceuticals in Brisbane, my research contributed to the development of a first-in-class immunotherapy for coeliac disease, and as a postdoctoral researcher, I was involved in its clinical trials.
I became a WEHI Lab Head in 2014 and established a broad, immune-driven translational program to address key unmet needs for patients with coeliac disease. We collaborate closely with patient associations, clinicians, scientists and drug developers to advance novel diagnostics and treatments and have expanded our discovery platform to include other food-driven immune diseases.
More recently, my lab was pleased to welcome Emeritus Professor Len Harrison’s group, and type 1 diabetes is now an important focus of our work.
Tell us about your clinical career.
I began my medical career at the RMH as an intern in 1996 and, aside from a few years in Canberra and the UK, have worked there ever since. I specialised in gastroenterology in 2004 and co-founded a coeliac clinic with Dr Anderson, which I still run. It’s now a major referral centre for complex coeliac cases and gastrointestinal mucosal immune diseases.
I also run a private gastroenterology practice and perform endoscopies. With my new role at the Snow Centre, I’ll be stepping back from my clinical duties but will remain connected to the clinical space.
Why are you so passionate about immunology research?
Immunology sits at the heart of many major diseases, including autoimmune conditions, allergies, infectious diseases, cancer, inflammatory disorders, and responses to vaccines.
Understanding how the immune system functions, and malfunctions, is key for developing diagnostics and treatments that directly benefit patients. Achieving meaningful translational impact is what drives my passion for this research.
What are you most proud of in your career?
Using my clinical expertise to inform our research agenda and seeing the positive impact on patients is remarkably rewarding.
A key example is the partnership and trust built with people with coeliac disease who volunteer to eat gluten for our research, despite the considerable discomfort this often causes. Their commitment has enabled us to make major advances, including testing new therapies and developing a diagnostic blood test for coeliac disease that avoids the need for an invasive biopsy or the need to eat gluten.
These kinds of advances have the potential to transform peoples’ lives.
What’s something surprising people might not know about you?
I often lip-read! I have profound hearing loss in one ear and am severely deaf in the other. Hearing aids have been a game changer although noisy environments remain a challenge. Thanks to technology, I’m much better at tuning in (and tuning out!) when I need to.
What do you enjoy doing in your downtime?
I love spending time with my young son and whether we’re biking, running and swimming, he keeps me on my toes and reminds me how much slower and older I am these days! We’ve recently started exploring astronomy with an iPhone-controlled telescope – so I can sit back and let him do all the work while I pretend to know what I’m looking at.
I’ve also dusted off my high school French and am attempting to relearn the language – though honestly, I’m hopeless. Luckily, I know “croissant,” and “tarte tatin”, which pretty much covers the main reason I wanted to relearn French anyway.
