Speakers

Lowbury Lecture

Prof Brett Mitchell

Professor Mitchell AM is an internationally renowned clinician researcher in the field of infection prevention and control. He is Editor-in-Chief of Infection, Disease and Health, with appointments at Avondale University (Professor of Nursing and Health Services Research), the Central Coast Local Health District and Monash University. Brett’s research provides high quality evidence to inform infection control practice.  He has over 150 peer reviewed publications and has received several prestigious national awards for his contributions, including an Order of Australia and Commonwealth Health Ministers award for excellence in health and medical research. Prof Mitchell has served on several national committees in Australia and abroad, and is a Fellow of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control. Brett has led infection control teams and programs at the hospital and State level. His interests include environmental cleaning, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, non-ventilator associated pneumonia and the infection control workforce

JD Williams Lecture 

Prof Shiranee Sriskandan 

Shiranee Sriskandan is a Clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College and Head of the Section of Adult Infectious Diseases, based at Hammersmith Hospital. She is also co-Director of Imperial's Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (CBRB) and a theme lead for the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance.She leads research on Streptococcus pyogenes, the bacterium that causes tonsillitis and scarlet fever, but also invasive infections such as necrotising fasciitis, maternal sepsis, and toxic shock. In the developing world, S. pyogenes is also associated with rheumatic fever, a major cause of valvular heart disease. Despite the burden of illness, there is no vaccine, and this is an active area of research at present.Research in the Gram Positive Pathogenesis group is also driven by unexpected changes in either the bacteria causing disease, or the disease itself, in particular patient disease severity or epidemiology. This has led to work on novel streptococcal proteases that cleave chemokines, that might function as vaccine targets, as well as unexpected routes of bacterial dissemination in the lymphatic system. It has also led to identification of new sublineages of serotypes M89 and M1 S. pyogenes (M1UK); expansion of these lineages has accounted for increasing proportions of invasive infections worldwide.