Senior lecturer (Medical, Molecular and Forensic Sciences within the College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education) and research fellow (Centre for Biosecurity and One Health within the Harry Butler Institute).
Ticks and tick-borne diseases are an emerging threat globally, causing serious health concerns and economic burden ($10’s of billions). In Australia, concern regarding zoonotic tick-borne illnesses has increased and the question of a novel tick-borne disease acquired from Australian ticks is of critical scientific importance.
I lead an international, multi-disciplinary team to investigate the putative link between ticks, animals, and humans in Australia. My research is applying a multi-omics approach to uncover which microbes (and how they do it) cause long term illness in tick-bitten Australians. Anticipated outcomes include identifying biomarkers before clinical symptoms are detected, which in turn would be crucial for early treatment and limiting disease progression.
Parasitology, ticks, vector-borne disease, zoonoses, microbiology,
One Health, women in STEM.