Webinar by Laura Mackay

Laura Mackay
Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Peter Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia

Laura Mackay is a Professor and Laboratory Head at The Peter Doherty Institute at The University of Melbourne. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Bill & Melinda Gates International Scholar, a University of Melbourne Dame Kate Campbell Fellow, a Sylvia & Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation Senior Medical Research Fellow, Council (NHMRC) Leadership Investigator. She is the recipient of Awards including The 2019 Prime Minister’s Prize for The Frank Fenner Life Scientist of the Year, The Gottschalk Medal (Australian Academy of Science), The Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher, The Woodward Medal in Science and Technology, The Michelson Prize for Human Immunology and The Victorian Young Tall Poppy Award. She is also the current President of The Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania (FIMSA). For a number of years, Laura has been at the forefront of research on immunological memory, and how memory T cells protect the body against disease. Her work was instrumental in the discovery that a subset of immune cells called tissue-resident memory T cells are critical for the control of infection and cancer. The current focus of her Laboratory is on the molecular signals that govern tissue-resident memory T cell differentiation, with a view to harness these cells for the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies against disease.