Tania Sorrell

Biography

Professor Tania Sorrell, AM is Director of the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity (MBI) and Chair of the NHMRC’s Research Translation Faculty Steering Group on New and Emerging Health Threats. She is an internationally renowned infectious diseases physician and medical mycologist whose research focuses on invasive fungal infections. She has a long-standing interest in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, especially in immunocompromised individuals. As a leading international researcher on Cryptococcus, she has made major contributions toward understanding the mechanisms by which these fungi cause invasive infections. Professor Sorrell’s research on virulence determinants in C neoformans aims to develop new fungal diagnostic tests and new treatments. Her work has resulted in the development of clinically-useful rapid diagnostic tests (e.g. for brain infections). Professor Sorrell’s leadership was instrumental in establishing the MBI, a multi-faculty, multidisciplinary institute devoted to reducing the risks from and global impact of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, especially in the Asia-Pacific Region. She has successfully created multidisciplinary research networks including medical and veterinary sciences, biological sciences, and humanities and social sciences, in an effort to improve capacity in Australia and abroad, in diagnostics, surveillance, infection control and infectious disease prevention. She leads the MBI’s functioning as an expert resource in infectious diseases and biosecurity for government and professional bodies. Professor Sorrell is a regular expert contributor to international policy-forming bodies including the WHO and is a Senior Adviser at GAFFI (Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections). In 2014, she was awarded Member of the Order of Australia (AM), for significant service to medicine and the community as an infectious diseases researcher and adviser.

Research Interest

Professor Sorrell’s medical mycology research interests include: (a) basic research on the pathogenesis of invasive fungal infections using Cryptococcus neoformans as a model; (b) drug discovery; and (c) clinical and translational research. Her work has made major contributions to the understanding of cryptococcal disease in immunocompromised and immunocompetent hosts.