What a few of months of grants and awards! Adam (L1) and Wen Shi (EL1) were both successful with 5-year NHMRC investigator grants – amazing in a tough system. Jen won a highly sought after 5-year Viertel fellowship – one of only 3! Adam, Wen Shi and Marios all won 3-year Cummings pandemic therapeutics grants in the first round on offer. Mai was awarded an ECR grant from the University. Jen was awarded the Woodward prize from the University – one of the University’s most prestigious awards. Adam and Stephen made it on to the Clarivate highly cited researchers list in 2023 – supposedly around the top 1% of cited researchers worldwide. Safe to say we are enjoying our success and looking forward to exciting research times ahead. We held a small ceremony at University house recently reflecting on our successes and recognizing the hard work of all our team and collaborators that forms the basis of our good fortune.
We have wrapped up our 5-year NHMRC program grant. Jane expertly organised a recent function in the Yarra valley where we presented our latest work and reminisced wistfully about a 20-year odyssey of 4 NHMRC programs. Our original investigators included Nobel laureate Peter Doherty and brilliant clinician-scientist the late David Cooper. Stephen introduced the group to our gratefulness awards so there was plenty of good vibes and gratitude going around!
Jen organized a great lunch Xmas party in Brunswick for our groups with plenty of wine-making creativity. Some rolled on to the Doherty Xmas function with the Barbie and Ken theme!
We begin the new year with some new staff coming on board – Nanouk Zuidmeer is a Masters student from the Netherlands working with Wen Shi for 6 months. Chris Gonelli returns from a post-doc at the NIH VRC and is working with Adam on Mab projects. Palak Mehta starts a post-doc with Jen in March.
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