RSV vaccines for the protection of older adults

Kristine Macartney is a paediatrician and infectious disease specialist. She is a medical graduate of the University of NSW and has over 20 years of experience in vaccinology.

She has experience working in the US at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she was a founding member of the US Vaccine Education Center. Her Doctorate of Medicine was on rotavirus infection, in particular the mucosal immune response to novel vaccine candidates. She is interested in all aspects of vaccine preventable disease research, particularly policy development, vaccine safety and prevention of viral diseases. She is the Senior Editor of the Australian Immunisation Handbook. Kristine is a Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and has a conjoint academic appointment as Professor in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney.

Jen Kok is a medical virologist, infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist. He supervises the virology laboratory of the NSW Health Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Westmead Hospital. This reference laboratory is also a World Health Organization National Influenza Centre. Jen’s research and clinical interests include respiratory viruses, viral infections of public health significance, emerging viral infections, infections in immunocompromised hosts and antiviral resistance. He is also actively involved in laboratory and clinical trials investigating innovative laboratory diagnostic methods and novel therapeutic agents.

Katherine Gibney is an infectious diseases physician, public health physician and medical epidemiologist. She has a particular interest in infections in immigrants and returned travellers, vector-borne diseases and gastrointestinal infections, and Indigenous health. Katherine works at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Doherty Institute, and has an appointment in Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance at the Victorian Government Department of Health. She completed a PhD at Monash University that examined the burden of selected infectious diseases in Australia and the national infectious diseases surveillance system.

Madeline Hall is a Nurse Practitioner specialising in vaccine preventable diseases and with a special interest in vaccine safety. She has extensive experience in vaccine preventable diseases and is involved in advanced health assessments and risk screening of adults with specific vaccination requirements, such as persons who have had a previous serious or unexpected adverse event following immunisation, immunocompromised persons and those at occupational risk. Madeline was a member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) from 2012 to 2021 and has been a member of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines since 2020.

Rama Kandasamy is a Staff Specialist at the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and NCIRS, and a Senior Lecturer and National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader Fellow at the University of Sydney. His areas of interest include infectious respiratory diseases and the development of interventions to prevent them.