Stroke and Imaging Inflammation Group

About the Stroke and Imaging Inflammation Group


YouTube video (1.38min) A/Prof Connie Wong received the 2019 CSL Limited Centenary Fellowship. Video courtesy: CSL

Inflammation is one of the first responses of the immune system to infection or injury. Our laboratory uses cutting edge in vivo imaging techniques to directly visualise and study the immune processes involved in inflammation in both infectious and non-infectious models. By imaging these complex cellular interactions in real time, we begin to understand how immune cells function and interact under physiological and pathological disease states. Current work focuses on the mechanisms that underlie immune impairment and identify strategies to strengthen the host immune defence to:

  • limit infections after stroke
  • regulate inflammatory cell function during neuroinflammation.
  • modulate inflammation during sepsis

Graduate research projects

Latest research highlight

Microglia take centre stage in the earliest hours of stroke

Study led by Dr Joshua Bourne and Prof Connie Wong has shown that the brain’s own immune cells, microglia, are the key culprits driving damaging inflammation within just three hours of stroke onset.

Find out more

Group Head

Professor Connie Wong

Connie Wong After completing her PhD at Monash University, Prof Wong was trained in the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary in Canada and returned to Monash University as a research fellow at the Department of Immunology (Clayton). She has secured continual fellowship and grant support totalling >$14M since the award of her PhD, including ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award, NHMRC Career Development Fellowship levels 1 and 2 (relinquished in favour of other fellowship support), multiple National Heart Foundation (NHF) fellowships, and the highly prestigious CSL Centenary Fellowship ($1.25M for the years of 2019-2023). Prof Wong is the current Level 3 NHF Future Leaders Fellow (2024-2027). Additionally, funding success as lead investigator from diverse sources, including the NHMRC Project (x2), Ideas (x3), Development, NHF Vanguard (x2), MRFF Cardiovascular Mission (x2) and National Critical Research Infrastructure initiative, have enabled her to rapidly grow her team and establish the Stroke and Imaging Inflammation Group in the Department of Medicine. In 2019, Prof Wong was appointed the Deputy Director of Monash Centre for Inflammatory Diseases.  Find out more about Prof Connie Wong.

Publications

Read and access our key publications.