2016 Dr. Christina Fleischmann Award

MICHELLE TATE

Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Dr Michelle Tate received her PhD in 2010 from the University of Melbourne, Australia under thesupervision of A/Prof Patrick Reading. Her doctoral studies focused on identifying a number ofhost and virus-encoded factors implicated in modulating disease during IAV infection.

For this body of work, Dr Tate received numerous prestigious awards including a Commendation for the Victorian Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research and the University of Melbourne’s Chancellor’s Prize and Dean of Medicine’s Prize.

In 2011, Dr Tate began post-doctora lstudies in the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia under the mentorship of Prof Paul Hertzog and in 2012, she was awarded a Peter Doherty Fellowship from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. Her research has made a significant contribution to understanding the role of different aspects of innate immune system in modulating disease, especially during influenza virus infections. Her current research program focuses on understanding inflammasomes and type I interferon responses in the pathogenesis of influenza A virus infections. Recently, Dr Tate’s published findings (Scientific Reports, 2016) have provided the first evidence that timely therapeutic targeting of the NLRP3 inflammasome may be a clinical option for reducing hyper inflammation associated with severe and fatal IAV infections.

Dr Tate has published 36 papers and in 2016 was the recipient of the Victorian Infection and Immunity Network Career Development Award for her contributions to the innate immunity field. She has been a consultant to the biotechnology industry and is a member of a number of editorial boards.