I was born and raised in Papua New Guinea and this upbringing inspired my passion for medical research.

We have developed a protein microarray technology with widespread application to many diseases and wanted to apply this technology to help improve the lives of millions of people worldwide who suffer from this debilitating disease.

The recent study of 10 million young adults in the US military spanning 20 years revealed that the risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV, but was unchanged after infection with other viruses, which provided compelling evidence implicating EBV infection as the trigger for MS onset.

Infection with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a strong risk factor for the development of MS. This research project aims to identify from the complete EBV proteome the EBV antigens that are targets of an increased immune response in MS and define an anti-EBV antibody signature specific to MS that could ultimately be developed into a point-of-care diagnostic test for MS.

With no definitive cure and no specific test available, MS diagnosis is challenging and time-consuming, and the unpredictable course of disease poses further challenges for effective treatment. This research project directly addresses this critical gap, by leveraging the knowledge that Epstein-Barr Virus is a risk factor for MS to identify specific biomarkers for the disease which could be developed into a user-friendly blood-based point-of-care diagnostic test for MS disease and recurrence. This would have high clinical utility and worldwide impact.

I love exploring how things work and building on this to improve global public health.