Professor Sharon Lewin

• Key Achievements
• Publications
• Projects
• Research Groups

• Key Achievements

  • She has authored over 260 publications and given over 100 major international invited talks on HIV cure. Her work on in vitro models of latency, latency reversing agents and clinical trials of cure interventions has attracted widespread interest in the general and scientific media, including Science, Nature, Nature Medicine, The Economist and The New Yorker. She co-chairs the International AIDS Society’s Towards an HIV Cure initiative, and in 2014, was the local co-chair for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, the largest health conference ever held in Australia. She is chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee for Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmitted Infections, the peak advisory committee to the Federal Minister for Health; a member of the NHMRC Council; an elected member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society representing the Asia-Pacific region; and was a foundation council member of the Australian Academy for Health and Medical Research. She was named Melburnian of the Year in 2014, and in 2015, was awarded the Peter Wills Medal by Research Australia. In 2019 Sharon was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of her distinguished service to medical research, and to education and clinical care, in the field of infectious diseases, particularly HIV and AIDS.

  Publications
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  Projects

  • HIV and co-infections

    Co-infections with viral or bacterial pathogens cause significant morbidity in patients with HIV. In the case of HIV/HBV co-infection, morbidity and mortality secondary to liver disease is greatly increased compared to those infected with HBV or HIV alone. Mortality remains elevated even after treating both the HIV and HBV virus. The HBV Immunology Lab investigates the mechanism of how HIV can accelerate liver disease in patients co-infected with HBV. They hypothesise that this occurs by combined effects of HIV and HBV on inflammation in the liver. These studies could potentially lead to new treatments for liver disease. In addition they have a long-standing interest in developing novel assays to characterise the immune response to other important HIV co-infections, including cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Cryptococcus.

  • HIV Latency Reversing Agents

    The biggest hurdle in curing HIV infection in an individual is that the virus remains dormant in some populations of cells, hiding from the immune system and the cocktail of antiviral drugs. This is described as HIV latency and poses a major barrier to curing HIV. The Lewin-Cameron Lab’s research focuses on agents that ‘wake up’ dormant HIV hiding in the body and reverse HIV latency. One group of drugs they strongly focus on is histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi).

  • HIV Reservoir Virology

    The HIV Reservoir Virology group’s major focus is on unravelling the viral determinants of HIV latency. They use innovative virological techniques to understand how the virus can persist on ART using CD4+ T-cells from HIV-infected individuals on ART. The reservoir virology group also has a major interest in developing assays to better quantify HIV persistence on antiretroviral therapy.

  • HIV-related immune reconstitution and immune activation

    Following antiretroviral therapy, CD4+ T-cells recover but often don’t recover to normal levels and immune activation can persist. Although patients are no longer at risk of AIDS associated illnesses, they are at increased risk of other diseases including cardiovascular disease, neurological disease and malignancy. The Lewin-Cameron lab is interested in determining novel host factors that influence immune reconstitution including genetic factors.

  • Dendritic cells and immunomodulation in HIV

    Dendritic cell-T cell interactions in different tissues are critical in generating T cell immunity and this interaction is important in controlling productive HIV infection and latency in the T cells.  The Lewin-Cameron Lab are exploring how different types of dendritic cells can control the establishment, reversal and maintenance of HIV latency.  One major interest of this group is the role of immune check points and their blockade in DC-induced HIV latency.

  Research Groups

  • Lewin Group

    The main focus of the Lewin group is to understand why HIV infection persists on antiretroviral therapy, to develop new strategies to eliminate latency and to define the biological determinants of immune reconstitution and factors that drive liver disease in HIV-hepatitis B virus co-infection.

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    Lab Team

    

    • Dr Jasminka Sterjovski

      Research Manager
    • Dr Jennifer Audsley

      Post-doctoral Research Fellow
    • Dr Jenny Anderson

      Post-doctoral Research Fellow
    • Dr Vanessa Evans

      Post-doctoral Research Fellow
    • Dr Jori Symons

      Post-doctoral Research Fellow
    • Dr Jennifer Zerbarto

      Post-doctoral Research Fellow
    • Ajantha Rhodes

      Lab Manager
    • Surekha Tennakoon

      Research Officer
    • Ashanti Dantanarayana

      Research Assistant
    • Dr Kasha Singh

      PhD student
    • Dr Matthew Pitman

      PhD student
    • Youry Kim

      PhD student
    • Zuwena Richardson

      PhD student
    • Haoming Liu

      PhD Student
    • Rachel Pascoe

      PhD Student
    • Jared Stern

      PhD Student
    • Wei Zhao

      Research Fellow
    • Socheata Chea

      Clinical Research Support and Systems Administrator
    • Carolin Tumpach

      Research Support Officer

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