Sharon Lewin

Professor Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist, who is internationally renowned for her research into all aspects of HIV disease and specifically in strategies to achieve an HIV cure. Professor Lewin is the inaugural Director of the Doherty Institute and the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics, a new center at the Doherty Institute established by a philanthropic gift of $250 million from Canadian philanthropist Geoff Cumming and $75 million from the Victorian government. She is also a Melbourne Laureate Professor of Medicine at The University of Melbourne and the immediate Past President of the International AIDS Society (IAS) (2022 – 2024), the largest professional society representing people working in HIV medicine and has over 14,000 members. She is an Advisory Board member for the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations (NFACR), a Board Director for Doherty Clinical Trials Ltd and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ANRS/MIE, the largest funder of all infectious diseases research in France.

She received her medical degree (1986) and PhD (1997) from Monash University and post doctoral training at the Rockefeller University, New York (1997-1999). She heads a laboratory of 25 scientists and clinicians working on basic and translational research and early phase clinical trials aimed at finding a cure for HIV, understanding how HIV interacts with hepatitis B and novel antiviral strategies for SARS-CoV2. Her laboratory is funded by the NHMRC, the Medical Research Future Fund, the National Institutes of Health, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, mRNA Victoria and multiple commercial partnerships and philanthropic grants. She is also the Chief Investigator of The Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Diseases Emergencies (APPRISE) funded by the Federal Government, that aims to bring together Australia’s leading experts in clinical, laboratory and public health research to address key challenges in managing COVID19, including long COVID and antiviral utilization in both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.