A message from our Director,
Professor Anthony Kelleher

As we approach the end of 2019, it is an opportunity to pause and reflect on the past year. It has been thoroughly inspiring to be part of a team of wonderful researchers who have continued to produce impactful, life-saving infectious disease research. 

This final quarter of the year has seen a number of research achievements. Six of our world-class researchers were collectively awarded more than $10M through the NHMRC's new and highly competitive Investigator Grants Scheme. We are very pleased with this success, but acknowledge that the success rates for early and mid career researchers were lower than expected. We will be developing processes to support applications from this group moving forward.

We were delighted to welcome the first nine participants of the Cooper HIV/AIDS Research Training (CHART) Program, who travelled from countries throughout the Asia Pacific to take part in workshops to enhance their research skills. It was wonderful to see our colleagues from across the Kirby Institute come together in mentor and teaching capacities. Applications for the 2020 CHART Program have just opened, and we encourage those eligible to apply.

As you will read further in this newsletter, the results of the first every survey into trans and gender diverse sexual health has revealed some important and concerning issues, highlighting an urgent need to prioritise health resources and services to support this population.

I would like to congratulate the five Kirby Institute PhD graduates, who graduated in the August and December: Steven Badman, Sasiwimol Ubolyam, Sahar Bajis, Ian Down, and Angie Pinto. We are proud to attract such talented researchers into our PhD program.

With World AIDS Day recently taking place on 1 December, it was inspiring to see so many leaders in the HIV space, across sectors, come together and renew our focus on tackling HIV as a public health issue in Australia and our region more broadly. Although this year we reported the lowest numbers of new HIV diagnoses in 18 years, we're now seeing a higher proportion of heterosexual and Indigenous people represented in these numbers, which means we need research and evidence-based interventions to target these groups.

Finally, I would like to thank those who have donated so generously to the David Cooper Memorial Fund appeal. I am pleased to announce that the first use of those funds will be to establish the David Cooper Postgraduate Research Scholarship, and we will be announcing the details in early 2020.

We are proud of the work that the Kirby Institute produces, and this would not be possible without the many collaborators we have across the community, policy, academia and industry. Thank you all for your continued support and contribution. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

Sincerely,

Anthony Kelleher, Director of the Kirby Institute