Associate Professor Rowena Bull

A/Prof Rowena Bull is a research scientist with expertise in immunovirology based in the School of Medical Sciences and the Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of New South Wales. A/Prof Bull obtained her PhD in 2008 and is internationally recognized for her work on RNA viruses. A/Prof Bull has her own salary support as a tenured academic, and was just awarded a prestigious NHMRC Investigator grant (2021-2025) to understand how best to train the immune response to tackle genomically diverse RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis C, dengue, and Influenza. A/Prof Bull has led the development of several new high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) tools for both RNA viruses and host immune transcripts. More recently A/Prof Bull, with a team of bioinformaticians, has developed flow cytometry-based methods for concurrent isolation and characterisation of the entire transcriptome and antigen-receptor of virus-specific single B cells. These tools are providing unique insights into the mechanisms of protection from hepatitis C re-infection via long-lived, virus-specific memory B cells. A/Prof Bull is the Treasurer for the Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology (ACHV), and Vice President for the Australasian Society of Virology (AVS). She is also part of the Communicable Diseases Genomic Network (CDGN), an expert committee formed to advise CDNA on SARS-CoV-2 viral genomic studies. She has a strong track record in influencing policy related to viral infection and control, with her work being cited in WHO, CDC and American Academy of Science Policy documents. A/Prof Bull was recently commissioned by WHO to advise on HTLV-1, in November 2019 in Japan.