Dr. Julianne Djordjevic is a Vice President at Millenium Institute, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. Her group’s research focuses on elucidating mechanisms used by fungi to cause systemic infection in humans using Cryptococcus neoformans as a model, with a view to exposing novel targets for antifungal drug design. Specifically, the major interests of the group are to understand how fungal virulence factors, including phospholipase B and acid phosphatase get secreted by fungi, and to investigate the role of a series of newly described inositol polyphosphate kinases in a cellular pathway critical for production of virulence factors and phosphate homeostasis. She completed a PhD at the University of Queensland in 1994 investigating the molecular basis of atherosclerosis. She then moved to Sydney to continue her molecular studies on atherosclerosis with Keith Stanley at the Heart Research Institute. Her research direction then changed to understanding the pathogenesis of infectious disease when she came to Westmead Hospital to embark on a second post-doctoral fellowship. Here she worked with Nick Manolios and Peter Williamson to investigate sites of action of novel immunosuppressive/antimicrobial peptides, mechanisms of HIV pathogenesis and the role of lipid rafts in the microbial infection process.

Infection and Immunological Conditions