Professor Sharon
Lewin AO, FRACP, PhD, FAHMS
Director of Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Sharon Lewin 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; Professor of Medicine, The University of Melbourne; consultant infectious diseases physician, Alfred Hospital and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow, Melbourne, Australia. The Doherty Institute employs over 700 staff with the overall vision to improve health globally through discovery research and the prevention, treatment and cure of infectious diseases.
She is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist. Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding a cure for HIV infection. She has given over 100 major invited talk internationally on the topic of an HIV cure and has published over 250 papers. She is also the lead investigator for the Australian Partnership for Preparedness Planning on Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE) – an NHMRC funded Centre for Research Excellence that involves over 20 organisations across Australia. She is a member of the council of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, an elected member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society (IAS) representing the Asia Pacific region and co-chairs the IAS Global Advisory board for the Towards an HIV Cure initiative. She is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Agence National du Recherche de SIDA and the Vaccine Research Centre at the National Institutes for Health, Bethesda MD.
In 2014 she was named Melburnian of the Year and in 2015 awarded the Peter Will Medal from Research Australia. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019.