After a PhD at University of Melbourne, Associate Professor Wheatley undertook postdoctoral training at the Vaccine Research Center, NIH, USA. There he focused upon defining correlates of immune protection following clinical immunisation trials and characterising humoral immunity elicited to experimental HIV and influenza vaccines. He returned to the University of Melbourne in 2015, where he established a team focused upon understanding mechanisms to generate broad and lasting antibody-based protection against viral diseases such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2. Specific interests include the control of B cell trafficking, germinal centre and memory formation, the basis for cross-reactive recognition of antigenically diverse pathogens by antibody, and the rational design and pre-clinical testing of novel vaccine concepts.
