We are delighted to announce that the Biosecurity Program, headed by Professor Raina MacIntyre, joined the Kirby Institute last month. Professor MacIntyre and her team join us from the UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
The Biosecurity Program is a multidisciplinary program that engages with experts in health, field epidemiology, emergency management, defence, law enforcement, and ethics. It will diversify further collaborative opportunities between programs within the Kirby Institute, as well as in the wider research community.
The program is focused on global risk analysis, detection, prevention, mitigation, response and control of epidemic diseases and bioterrorism. The research centres on emerging infectious diseases, rapid epidemic surveillance, field response, bioterrorism, bio-intelligence, and health security in a changing biotechnology landscape, looking at both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical means of preventing these threats.
“The Kirby Institute is globally renowned for its infectious disease research, and we are excited to be part of it and to collaborate with other talented infectious disease researchers at the Kirby,” said Professor MacIntyre.
Professor MacIntyre was head of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at UNSW Sydney from 2008 until 2018 when she joined to the Kirby Institute, and has an impressive background in research and academia. She is a NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Professor of Global Biosecurity and PLuS Alliance Fellow at UNSW Sydney. She also leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence – Health Services Research: Integrated Systems for Epidemic Response (ISER); the first in Australia to be dedicated to epidemic response. With over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals, she has extensive experience in field outbreak investigation, public health and clinical research.
We welcome the Biosecurity Program to the Kirby Institute and look forward to working with Professor MacIntyre and her team.