29 Aug 2016
Q&A with Professor Stephen Kent
This profile of Doherty Institute Laboratory Head Professor Stephen Kent, was first published in the ARC Centre in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology (CBNS) at Monash University newsletter. Professor Kent also holds a position at CBNS as Vaccines Theme Leader.
How long have you been with the CBNS? Since the beginning!
What were you doing before the CBNS? I trained as infectious disease physician in Melbourne and did a postdoc at the University of Washington in the USA. I worked at the Burnet Institute and have been at Melbourne Uni for over 10 years! I still work as an infectious disease physician looking after people with HIV and other infectious diseases at the Alfred Hospital and the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre.
What do you like best about your work? I love the people, the technologies, the relevance, the collaborations. What’s not to like about getting paid to follow your passions?!!
Why did you choose to work in this area? The ability to prevent and treat illnesses, the new infections always cropping up, and the pace of advances lured me into vaccines and infectious diseases. I love interacting with patients but it's the best of both worlds being able to do research also.
First job? Newspaper delivery boy - although my first real job was as a hospital orderly!
Worst job? I was a door to door salesman for fertiliser one summer at Uni. It doesn’t get any worse than that.
What projects are you currently working on? We are studying immunity to HIV and Influenza. We are studying how nanoparticles interact with immune cells - this forms the basic understanding of how to use these particles as future vaccines.
What is your favourite place in the world and why? I have hiked quite a bit in South-West Tasmania - it’s a beautiful place and very remote. Two years ago a friend and I hiked there for 25 days almost without seeing anyone else. A video we created about the trip is on YouTube.
Tell us something about yourself that your colleagues may not know? Last year I published an article in Wild magazine. I’m not sure if the CBNS can count that one as a research output though!