SEMINAR: The role of natural immunity, drugs and vaccines against Hepatitis C

The Speaker: Associate Professor Silvana Gaudieri completed her PhD in the area of immunogenetics at UWA and then undertook post-doctoral training at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan and Cambridge University in the UK before returning back to Perth in 2003. Her research focus has been on understanding host-viral interactions in Hepatitis C and HIV and how this relationship affects infection outcome and disease progression.

The Seminar: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a global health problem with an estimated 170 million people thought to be infected worldwide. The development of new small molecules that target specific HCV proteins has revolutionised the efficacy of HCV treatment. However, these drugs are unlikely to prevent re-infection, a common occurrence in high-risk HCV exposure populations, and are financially not viable in resource-poor countries. Hence, there is a continuing need for a protective HCV vaccine. The ability to develop a protective vaccine against HCV is bolstered by the existence of natural immunity in the population that is reliant upon an effective anti-HCV immune response. The research group has been studying the signature of an effective anti-HCV response in order to inform vaccine design and this talk will present a summary of our findings.