Harini De Silva Email & Phone Number

Australia

Melbourne

I worked as Senior Scientist (2iC) at the Human Immunology Translational Research Laboratory (HITRL)/Neeson Lab, within the Cancer Immunology Research Division, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne. Translational research at HITRL focuses on immunotherapy of human cancer particularly immune checkpoint blockade drugs and CAR-T cells. Multi-colour flow cytometry along with other cutting edge technologies such as multiplex immunohistochemistry (Opal platform), mass cytometry (CyTOF) and high dimensional gene expression analysis (NanoString platform) are used to characterise the immune context of cancer in response to immune checkpoint blockade drugs. Patient samples from immunotherapy clinical trials are analysed broadly across multiple tumour streams.My role involved managing all operational activities of HITRL, working with trial investigators and clinical trial managers to produce laboratory manuals for biospecimen collection and processing, project planning, design and execution of research, staff induction and training, costing and budgeting of research projects for external funding applications, preparation of ethics applications and reporting.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Immunocompromised host translational research laboratory within the Monash Department of Infectious Disease, focuses on infections in immunocompromised individuals such as patients undergoing chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation. I was the scientific lead in a number of projects in this laboratory including (1) Cohort study to determine functional immune recovery following stem cell transplantation. This work aims to personalise the the optimal timing for anti-microbial prophylaxis and re-vaccination in stem cell transplant recipients. The study findings were published in Clinical Translational Immunology and was awarded the CTI best publication award for 2019. This data shows that immune recovery can be precisely measured and will pave the way for improved management of infections post-stem cell transplantation. (2) Establishment and validation of a PCR assay for the diagnosis of invasive fungal disease caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, and implementing NATA's ISO 15189 accreditation requirements.(3) Discovery of biomarkers that predict risk for fungal infections in lung transplants patients. Bronchoalveloar lavage samples were used for immunophenotyping by multi-colour flow cytometry and cytokine profile analysis using multiplex assays.

Melbourne, Australia

The Burnet ImmunoMonitoring Facility (IMF) specialised in developing and performing customised immunoassays (compliant with the international standard ISO/IEC 17025; 2005), to support vaccine and drug development in early stage clinical trials. My role included (1) assay development and validation, (2) project management of R&D activities (3) implementing the quality system which enabled the Burnet IMF to become the first NATA (R&D) accredited facility in Victoria. In 2015 Burnet IMF merged with Innoviron Pty Ltd and launched the contract research organisation, 360 Biolabs.

Department Of Microbiology

Immunologist on a multi-disciplinary team working on pre-clinical development of the human malaria vaccine candidates, Merozoite Surface Protein 4 and 5 (MSP4 and MSP5) for manufacture and testing in Phase 1 clinical trials. This project was funded by the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and carried out in collaboration with CSL Ltd.During my time at the Department of Microbiology, I also held a Sessional Lecturer position delivering lectures in immunology based units to students in the Bachelor of Biomedical Science courses.

Deprtment Of Immunology

Post doctoral position in the Allergy laboratory at Monash Medical School. My research project involved characterisation of human T cell responses to allergens using the environmental allergen latex as a model and development of hypoallergenic mutant proteins as allergy vaccine candidates.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Immunology

Bachelor Of Science (Bsc), Immunology, First Class Honours

Master Of Public Health (Mph)

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Immunology

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Master Of Public Health - Mph, Immunology