The Univeristy of Melbourne The Royal Melbourne Hopspital

A joint venture between The University of Melbourne and The Royal Melbourne Hospital

Dr Marios Koutsakos

Dr Marios Koutsakos

(03) 8344 3384 | marios.koutsakos@unimelb.edu.au

Position:
Research Fellow
Theme(s):
Immunology, Bacterial and Parasitic Infections
Discipline(s):
Discovery Research, Clinical and health systems research
Unit(s):
Department of Microbiology and Immunology (DMI)
Lab Group(s):
Kent Group

Marios completed his BSc in Biomedical Sciences at Imperial College in London, working with Professor Wendy Barclay on the molecular virology of influenza B viruses. He then obtained a Masters degree in Systems and Synthetic biology, also at Imperial College. Marios subsequently undertook a PhD with Professor Katherine Kedzierska within the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, focusing on understanding protective immunity to influenza viruses, especially the understudied but clinically relevant influenza B viruses. Marios is now a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Kent Group, working on dissecting the antigenic evolution and antibody responses to influenza B viruses in order to rationally designing a universal influenza B virus vaccine.

  • Key Achievements
    • Marios’ work has so far resulted in three first author manuscripts, including highly ranked journals; Nature Immunology and Science Translational Medicine, as well as a patent inventorship on the design of novel universal influenza vaccines. He has received numerous awards, including the QIAGEN PhD Achievement award, as well as the James S Porterfield Prize in international virology by the University of Oxford, the ASI Pharmaxis award, an ASI International Travel Award and was a ASI New Investigator finalist. In 2020 he was a recipient of an NHMRC EL1 fellowship, an ECR grant by the University of Melbourne and a Dyason Fellowship.

    Publications
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    Research Groups
    • Kent Group

      Stephen’s group studies immunity to HIV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2. They are analysing a variety of vaccine strategies, including nanoparticle-based vaccines. They are studying a series of immune responses to gain better insights into protective immunity to important viral pathogens. They are developing monoclonal antibody therapies for HIV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 to improve the treatment of these infections. The Kent group works very closely with Dr Amy Chung’s laboratory at the Doherty Institute.


      Lab Team

      Kent Group

      • Dr Adam Wheatley
        Laboratory Head
      • Laboratory Head
      • Hyon-Xhi Tan
        Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Research Fellow
      • Research Officer
      • Rosela Webster
        Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Mai Ngoc Vu
        Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Lara Schwab
        Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Mitchell Zheng
        Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Mai-Chi Trieu
        Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
      • Andrew Kelly
        Research Assistant
      • Lauren Burmas
        Research Assistant
      • Julie Nguyen
        Research Assistant
      • Robyn Esterbauer
        Research Assistant
      • Thakshila Amarasena
        Research Support Officer
      • Jane Batten
        Project Manager
      • Janavi Rambhatla
        Senior Project Officer
      • Devaki Pilapitiya
        PhD Student
      • Ruth Purcell
        PhD Student (co-supervisor with Amy Chung)
      • Isaac Barber-Axthelm
        PhD Student
      • Kirsty Field
        PhD Student
      • Samantha Davis
        PhD Student (co-supervisor with Amy Chung)
      • Thu Do
        PhD Student
      • Yee-Chen Liu
        PhD Student
      • Veronica Zoest
        PhD Student
      • Professor David O'Connor
        Honorary
      • Professor Shelby O'Connor
        Honorary
      • Dr David (Yi) Ju
        Honorary
      • Dr Hillary Vanderven
        Honorary
      • A/Prof Matt Parsons
        Honorary
      • Dr Nghia Truong
        Honorary
      • Dr Sinth Jegaskanda
        Honorary
      • A/Prof Steve Rockman
        Honorary
      • Dr Emily Pilkington
        Guest Scientist
      • Dr Shiyao Li
        Guest Scientist
      • Diyana Hassanel
        Guest Scientist
      • Zihnil Mazrad
        Guest Scientist