Professor Sharon Lewin AO
Professor Sharon Lewin AO is an infectious diseases physician and virologist.
She is the inaugural Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between The University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital.
She is also a Melbourne Laureate Professor at The University of Melbourne; Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at The University of Melbourne and consultant infectious diseases physician at the Alfred Hospital and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow.
She completed her medical degree and Doctor of Philosophy in Virology at Monash University in 1996, her specialist infectious diseases training at Alfred and Royal Melbourne Hospitals in 1997, and her post-doctoral fellowship with Dr David Ho at Rockefeller University, New York in 1999.
After returning to Australia, she established her laboratory at The University of Melbourne (1999 to 2003) and then moved to the Alfred Hospital and Monash University as Professor and Director of Infectious Diseases (2003 to 2014).
Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding a cure for HIV infection, understanding the interactions of HIV with common co-infections and more recently has established a new research program on diagnostics and treatments for COVID-19. She has published over 360 publications and given over 100 major invited talks on HIV cure. In 2014 she was named Melburnian of the Year and in 2019 was named a Clarivate Web of Science high citation researcher.
She is President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, the largest organisation representing professionals working in HIV medicine with over 14,000 members.
Professor Lewin leads a large national network funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia called The Australian Partnership in Research for Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE) which focuses on pandemic preparedness and commenced work in 2016. Scientists from the Doherty Institute were the first to isolate and share the SARS COV2 virus outside of China and have a broad program of research focused on testing, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. She co-chairs the National COVID Health and Research Advisory Committee and over the last 18 months has provided the Victorian and federal government with scientific advice on all aspects of the COVID-19 response. She is the President of the Scientific Advisory Board to the ANRS-MIE, the principal funding body in France which supports work in HIV, viral hepatitis and emerging infectious diseases.
Professor Lewin is passionate about science communication and community engagement and has provided objective and rational insights and perspectives on both HIV and more recently COVID-19 in the national and international media, and to civil society and the business community.
Professor Lewin was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Australia Day 2019 Honours List for “distinguished service to medical research, and to education, in the field of infectious diseases particularly HIV/AIDS.”
