With increasing drug-resistance and a dearth of efficacious therapies for many viral and bacterial infections, there is an urgent need to better understand the host:pathogen interface to enable novel approaches to be devised to suppress a range of pathogens My academic research program is focused on understanding how our innate immune system works, and how it is manipulated by microbes. This knowledge enables us to devise new ways to combat microbial infections and drives our translational research program.