John Lowenthal

John Lowenthal obtained his PhD in immunology from The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute at the University of Melbourne and completed Post-doctoral positions at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland and at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University, USA.

John joined CSIRO in 1990 where he held various senior positions until 2016. As the former Research Director for Infectious Diseases located at CSIRO AAHL his responsibilities included managing an extensive portfolio of projects aimed at developing medical therapeutics and vaccines for a range of infectious diseases of animals and humans. His research areas included studying pandemic viral diseases under high biocontainment; developing novel therapeutics, vaccines and medical countermeasures for viruses such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, Ebola and Hendra viruses; establishing new animal models for emerging zoonotic diseases; developing alternatives to antibiotics to combat anti-microbial resistance (AMR); and developing genetically modified disease-resistant animals.

Throughout his 30-year research career, he has been involved in large-scale international project management and working collaboratively with commercial and university partners across the biosecurity and medical technologies sector. He has published over 150 journal articles (many in prestigious journals including Nature, Science, PNAS) and is an inventor on 10 internationally-granted patents. John is currently an adjunct Professor at Deakin University’s School of Medicine and provides advice to medical biotechnology companies, research organisations and the health and biosecurity industries.