Group Leader
Associate Professor Sumaira Z. Hasnain
Sumaira Hasnain graduated with her PhD in December 2010 from The University of Manchester, UK. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Mater Research Institute-University of Queensland with a team of 8 researchers. A/Prof Hasnain was the first globally to demonstrate that immunity can modulate protein production in secretory cells in infection and chronic diseases. Her long-term vision has been to characterise these novel immune factors and manipulate them therapeutically using pre-clinical models of immune-driven pathologies. She holds several patents for targeted immunotherapy in metabolic disease which has led to the formation of a spin-off company, Jetra Therapeutics and venture capitalist funding. She has a rapid upward trajectory in research, evident by extensive body of high-quality publications including in Nature Medicine, Nature Comms, Oncogene and Gastroenterology. She has been awarded more than $8 million in competitive funding and has won 21 awards to date, and is currently an National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator (L1). n addition to her research achievements, A/Prof Hasnain is a staunch advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in STEMM. She serves on the Australian STEMM Equity Advocacy Team, the EDI Committee at Mater Research, and holds the position of Chair on the EDI Committee for the Australia and New Zealand Society for Immunology. Through her work, she is committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable environment for future generations of scientists.
Lab Manager/Senior Research Assistant
Dr Kuan Yau Wong
Kuan Yau Wong is Senior Research Assistant in Immunopathology Group at Mater Research-UQ. She has more than 20 years of working experience in research and academia.
Kuan Yau (K-Y) graduated with Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours from University of Malaya and Master of Science with specialisation in Pharmacy from University of Science, Malaysia. She then received her PhD from University of Queensland (UQ), where she studied as a Cooperative Research Centre-Biomarker Translation (CRC-BT) and UQ scholars. Prior to coming to Australia, K-Y was a Laboratory Executive and an Academic Instructor in Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore and Lecturer in School of Pharmacy at University College Sedaya International (UCSI), Malaysia.
Senior Research Assistant
Alexandra Mueller
Alexandra completed her Bachelor in molecular biology at the University of Applied Sciences at Recklinghausen (Germany) in 2014 followed by a Master in medical biology at the University of Essen-Duisburg (Germany) in 2018. After her relocation to Brisbane her career started as Senior Research Technician working within UQDI for the immunopathology group in cooperation with the cytokine signalling group at TRI. Within that time her work included the design and creation of plasmids with the purpose of producing lentiviral constructs for T-cell transduction. After the completion of her work in 2021 Alexandra then joined the Mater Immunopathology group located at TRI. Here she works as research assistant alongside her colleagues on different projects including the impact of IL-22 on the on the MHCII expression on epithelial cells in the lung and the gut during viral infection within mice models.
PhD Student
Thishan Illankoon
Thishan Illankoon graduated with a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, with 1st Class Honours from the University of Queensland in 2022, where he investigated the immunological capability of epithelial cells. He is currently a second year PhD student under A/Prof Sumaira Hasnain’s supervision at the Mater Research Institute – University of Queensland, where his work focuses on aging and the dysfunction of the unfolded protein response in mucosal epithelial cells. He ultimately aims to identify the impact of this on infection susceptibility and severity in older age populations.
Past - PhD Student
Haressh Sajiir
Haressh Sajiir graduated with 1st class honours (BSc) from the University of Queensland in 2019. He has now completed his PhD at the Mater Research Institute - University of Queensland, under the direct supervision of A/Prof Sumaira Hasnain. Haressh is now based at the NIH for his postdoctoral training. Haressh’s work revolved around examining the role of an immune factor metabolic syndrome and using this knowledge to improve treatment outcomes for those with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. He has a keen interest in research, evident by the multiple conferences he has presented at, both nationally and internationally. Aside from his time in research, Haressh is also keen on giving back to the broader community and sits on the Australian Society of Medical Research (ASMR) Queensland State Committee, University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine HDR Committee, and Mater Student Research Committee.
