How We Operate

In 2022 the Australian Government re-funded the Centre for a further 4 years. ACH4 draws upon the outstanding body of basic research in these diseases (funded by NHMRC and other granting bodies) to inspire and initiate translation into clinical research which has resulted in new therapeutic strategies, diagnostics, prognostics, and candidate vaccines.

Leadership

Executive Committee

Meet our Team

Professor Anthony Cunningham AO

Learn More

Professor Andrew Lloyd AM

Learn More

Dr David Anderson

Learn More

Professor Gilda Tachedijan

Learn More

Dr Margaret Littlejohn

Learn More

Associate Professor Thomas Tu

Learn More

Professor Damian F.J Purcell

Learn More
Ach4 Full Logo White
Together, we discover healthcare improvements.

Contact

ACH4 acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on all of the lands on which we live, work and travel through. We pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging.

© 2025 ACH4. All Rights Reserved.
A Kansas City Marketing Agency

Professor Tony Cunningham AO, FAHMS

  • Director, Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Virology Research (ACH4)
  • Director, Centre for Virus Research (WIMR)
  • Prof Faculty of Medicine & Health Sydney ID
  • Chair, NSW& ACT Branch, Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences
  • NHMRC Leadership Fellow
  • Phone: 0286273004
  • Email: tony.cunningham@sydney.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Professor Anthony (Tony) Cunningham, AO,FAHMS, MD, FRACP, FRCPA is an infectious diseases physician, clinical virologist and scientist, well known internationally for his research on the immunobiology of HIV and herpesviruses, his work on vaccine development and trialling, especially for shingles and herpes, and as an antivirals expert. This group has also recently extended its expertise to defining immune responses to COVID vaccines in the aging & immunocompromised. He has been the founding Director of the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Research (ACH4) since 2003. He is also Professor and vaccine theme leader in the Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases, University of Sydney & Director of the Centre for Virus Research at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR).

Professor Andrew Lloyd, AM

  • Medicine & Health, The Kirby Institute
  • Program Head | Viral Immunology Systems Program (VISP)
  • Phone: 61 (2) 9385 2534
  • Email: a.lloyd@unsw.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Professor Andrew Lloyd is an infectious diseases physician, and an epidemiology, health services, immunology and virology researcher. He is an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow. He is the Head of the Viral Immunology Systems Program (VISP) in the Kirby Institute. His research focus is on hepatitis C, including both clinical studies which are based in the prisons, and laboratory-based immunovirology focusing on the determinants of protective immunity. His research program has been continuously funded by NHMRC since 1993.

Dr David Anderson

  • Honorary Associate Burnet Institute
  • Email: david.anderson@hburnet.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Dr Anderson was trained in Microbiology and Molecular Virology at the University of Melbourne and Fairfield Hospital/Burnet Institute under Professors Ian Gust and Stephen Locarnini. He received his PhD in 1989. His work at the Burnet Institute until 2022 has focused on understanding the structure and assembly of hepatitis viruses, and the use of this information to design better diagnostics, vaccines and antiviral therapies for control of major viral infections in humans. He is now a consultant in biotechnology and Chief Scientist of Nanjing DeShi Diagnostics. Dr Anderson has published more than 80 original research papers and invited chapters. He has presented on original research work at numerous national and international scientific meetings. He has been active in translation of research into practical outcomes through commercial ventures and academic collaborations and is an inventor on 10 active patent families, including a range of diagnostic products that have achieved regulatory approval in markets worldwide.

Professor Gilda Tachedjian

  • Head of Life Sciences Discipline;
  • Head of Tachedjian Laboratory (Retroviral Biology and Antivirals)
  • Senior Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute
  • Phone: (03) 9282 2256
  • Email: gilda.tachedjian@burnet.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Professor Tachedjian was awarded a PhD at Monash University and completed an NHMRC CJ Martin Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia University in New York. In 2002, Professor Tachedjian was recruited to the Burnet Institute and was awarded an NHMRC RD Wright Career Development Award in 2003 and NHMRC Senior Research Fellowships in 2009 and 2017. Prof Tachedjian is a virologist combining interdisciplinary basic, translational, and clinical research to identify and develop drug-based strategies to prevent and control human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). She has made major contributions to HIV reverse transcriptase, antivirals, drug resistance and HIV prevention research. In 2012 she was awarded the Frank Fenner Prize by the Australian Society for Microbiology in recognition of her distinguished contributions to research in Microbiology.

Dr Margaret Littlejohn

  • Senior Medical Scientist, Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory
  • Honorary Fellow, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne
  • Phone: (03) 9342 9331
  • Email: margaret.littlejohn@mh.org.au
  • Link to Research
  • Dr Margaret Littlejohn is a senior medical scientist at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, and Honorary Fellow in the Department of Infectious Diseases, based at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne. She is an expert in HBV molecular virology and the role of HBV genotypes in pathogenesis and treatment response and is currently leading a project funded by the mRNA Victoria Activation program to develop a new RNA-based therapy for chronic hepatitis B, using CRISPR technology. This project builds on work that was initially funded by a grant from ACH4.

    She is also involved in a long term collaboration examining the molecular epidemiology of HBV in Indigenous Australian populations which was also initially funded by a grant from ACH4, leading to 2 subsequent NHMRC grants. This was the first comprehensive molecular analysis of the HBV detected in the Australian Indigenous population, discovering a unique HBV sub-genotype found exclusively in the Indigenous Australian population.

    She also represents the WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis at VIDRL, involved in missions to Mongolia and China as a technical consultant to strengthen laboratory and surveillance networks and was recently invited to join the ICTV Hepadnaviridae Study Group.

Associate Professor Thomas Tu

  • Adjunct Associate Professor
  • Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR)
  • Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH)
  • Phone: (02) 8627 3912
  • Email: t.tu@sydney.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Associate Professor Thomas Tu is a molecular biologist with a particular focus on integrated Hepatitis B virus DNA and its role in disease progression. He currently leads a research group at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in the Storr Liver Centre (Sydney, Australia), where his team focuses on persistent forms of the Hepatitis B virus (covalently closed circular DNA and integrated HBV DNA). He is particularly passionate about developing an HBV cure and mitigating the associated liver cancer, as he himself lives with chronic Hepatitis B providing him with unique perspectives on the disease as a researcher, patient, and advocate. A/Prof Tu is President of the Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology, the premier Australian society for hepatitis virus researchers. He is also board member of Hepatitis Australia, guiding the strategic direction of the peak national advocacy body for people with liver disease. Importantly, A/Prof Tu is founder and Director of HepBCommunity.org (a global support network for people affected with HBV), guiding people through their HBV diagnosis and linking them with trustworthy scientific and medical information. He has won multiple awards for his research and outreach, most recently the 2022 Young Tall Poppy Science award.

Professor Damian F.J. Purcell

  • Doherty Institute, The University of Melbourne
  • Phone: (03) 8344 6753
  • Email: dfjp@unimelb.edu.au
  • Link to Research
  • Professor Damian Purcell is head of the molecular virology laboratory in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at The University of Melbourne. After receiving a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1987 he was a CJ Martin traveling fellow with Dr. Malcolm Martin at the Laboratory for Molecular Microbiology of the NIAID, at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. He returned to Melbourne’s Burnet Institute in 1995 before moving to a tenured teaching and research position at The University of Melbourne in 2001. He is the Virology Division Chair for the Australian Society of Microbiology, the immediate past President of the Australasian Virology Society, and Executive member of the Australian Center for HIV and Hepatitis Virology. He studies RNA-mediated control of retrovirus gene expression during productive and the latent phase of infection. He seeks to translate his insights into the molecular mechanisms governing viral replication and the innate and adaptive antiviral responses into new antiviral drugs, vaccines and biomedical preventions.
Skip to content