Professor Eric Chow PhD, MScMed(ClinEpid), MBiostat, MPH, MApplSc(Bioinf), FRSPH, FRSN

Professor Eric Chow [PhD, MScMed(ClinEpid), MBiostat, MPH, MApplSc(Bioinf), FRSPH, FRSN] is an STI epidemiologist and biostatistician based at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) at The Alfred Hospital. He heads the Health Data Management and Biostatistics Unit and co-heads the Clinical Evaluation Unit at MSHC and is a Professor at School of Translational Medicine, Monash University. He is also an Honorary Principal Fellow at the Melbourne School of Population & Global Health, The University of Melbourne. He is named Australia’s top researcher in the field of Sex & Sexuality (2024).

Prof Chow completed his PhD at the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales in 2014. He holds four Master’s qualifications in Applied Science (Bioinformatics), Public Health, Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology. He was a recipient of an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (2015-2018), NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator Grant EL2 (2020-2024) and NHMRC Leadership Investigator Grant L1 (2025-2029). He received an NHMRC Research Excellence Award for the highest-ranked application in the Emerging Leadership category of Investigator Grant EL2 (2019), and the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research (2020). He was also awarded the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases (2022), which is Australia’s top science award and is commonly referred as the “Oscars” for Australian Science.

Prof Chow’s research program aims to improve the treatment, prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections (STI), with a particular focus on gonorrhoea and human papillomavirus (HPV).

Gonorrhoea is one of the most common STIs and it is a global public health threat because the rates of infection are increasing at an alarming rate, and it is becoming increasingly resistant to the last first-line antibiotics. Prof Chow’s research program has developed a new paradigm of gonorrhoea transmission. He has led the investigation of gonorrhoea transmission via saliva and kissing, which have significant impacts on reinforcing current safe sex messages and interventions. He is currently undertaking an NHMRC-funded multicentre randomised controlled trial using mouthwash as a preventive strategy for oropharyngeal gonorrhoea. His research program has also focused on the evaluation of the national school-based HPV vaccination program. His work has demonstrated the public health benefits of the female HPV vaccination program in Australia (introduced in 2007) for females and heterosexual males. He is currently evaluating and monitoring the clinical and public health benefits of the universal HPV vaccination (introduced in 2013) for males. His work on HPV has helped to inform HPV guidelines abroad.

Prof Chow also communicates closely with the Government and community-based organisations in order to improve the health and well-being of the Australian population.

Prof Chow has a strong track record with >470 peer-reviewed publications including first or senior-author publications in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet HIV, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases and Journal of Infectious Diseases. He holds an h-index of 54 and his papers have been cited over 10500 times. Prof Chow is an Associate Editor or a member of the Editorial Board for 6 medical journals. He was the President of the Sexual Health Society of Victoria (2020-2023). He has been on the organising committee for the International Union Against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI) Asia-Pacific Congress held in Okayama, Japan (2016) and Auckland, New Zealand (2018). He was Co-convenor of the 2021 Joint Australasian HIV&AIDS and Sexual Health Conferences, and the Congress President of the 2024 IUSTI (International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections) World Congress. He has been an external reviewer for NHMRC Project Grants (2016-) and the Health and Medical Research Fund in Hong Kong (2015-).