Dr Andrew Flies

UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA
Research Field: Immunology

Cancer is a problem that affects all animals, ranging from humans to Tasmanian devils whose
population has plummeted in the past 20 years due to a contagious cancer. His research tracks
successful human cancer immunotherapies and engineers them for diagnostic and therapeutic tools
in other animals. His pioneering work in wild and comparative immunology has improved our
understanding of immune evasion by cancer and the marsupial immune system, and is accelerating
progress towards a vaccine to protect devils from cancer.
He is co-founder of Science in the Pub Adelaide in 2014 and Science in the Pub Tasmania in 2015
which have been holding monthly science outreach events have engaged thousands of people with
Australian scientists.
Andy’s outreach includes public talks for the University of Tasmania Science Worth Seeing event,
International Day of Immunology, Peppermint Bay public talk series, Beaker Street science festival,
Science March, and over 20 radio and TV interviews. He has created a custom “Fluorobox” which
shows how the fluorescent proteins made in the laboratory are developed and how they are used to
study the immune system and has been at several science events since 2017.
He is currently and ARC DECRA fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Menzies Institute for
Medical Research at the University of Tasmania.