NHMRC announces 2021 awards

Dale Godfrey and Hyon-Xhi Tan both from the Dept of Microbiology & Immunology have received research excellence awards.

NHMRC recognises excellence in the health and medical research sector through its annual Research Excellence Awards.

This year, Professor Dale Godfrey, immunologist at the Doherty Institute and Head of the Godfrey laboratory in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology has received the 2021 NHMRC Peter Doherty Investigator Grant Award (Leadership) for his research project, Unconventional T cells: Fundamental biology and therapeutic potential. Professor Godfrey’s research is looking to understand the development and function of unconventional T cells in health and disease, how they are regulated and how they can be harnessed for immunotherapy.

Dr Hyon-Xhi Tan, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the Doherty Institute has also been successful, receiving the 2021 NHMRC Frank Fenner Investigator Grant Award (Emerging Leadership). Hyon-Xhi's project,  Driving rational improvement of vaccines against respiratory viruses, is seeking  to characterise features of protective humoral responses in settings of vaccination or respiratory infections as well as define mechanisms that drive vaccine recognition using the most relevant targets of the virus for optimal protection.

Congratulations to both Dale & Hyon-Xhi.