Associate Professor Tanya Applegate
Associate Professor Applegate (BAppSc, PhD) is a diagnostic researcher and lead of the Diagnostics Innovation Group at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. Associate Professor Applegate has over 25 years of experience in regulatory, hospital, industry, laboratory and academic environments, and research focuses on equitable access to quality, simplified infectious disease diagnostics for people who are marginalised or living in remote or resource limited settings.
Associate Professor Applegate is co-lead of RAPID 2.0, a Centre for Research Excellence for the scale up of point-of-care testing for infectious diseases including respiratory, blood-borne and sexually transmitted infections in Australia and the Asia Pacific. Dr Applegate is Co-Director of an ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub to combat antimicrobial resistance and leads an NHMRC ideas grant to evaluate novel viability assays in sexually transmitted infections. CI Applegate has developed a strong global, multistakeholder network including with diagnostic industry partners and regularly invited to speak at international and national conferences. CI Applegate is co-founder of the inaugural POC23 testing conference for infectious disease, an executive member and global engagement lead subsequent conferences.
Broad Research Areas: Diagnostics, Infectious Diseases, Cohort and Clinical Research, Implementation
Specific Research Keywords: Point of Care Testing, Blood borne viruses, Sexually Transmitted Infections, Antimicrobial resistance
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Some publications:
Hajarizadeh B, George J, Levy MT, Wong I, Howell J, Cabrera G, Tu E, Martinello M, Applegate TL*, Matthews GV.* 2026. Evaluation of fingerstick blood point-of-care testing of hepatitis B DNA for enhanced hepatitis B treatment decision making: a diagnostic accuracy study. J Clin Microbiol 64:e01405-25 *contributed equally to this article.
Applegate TL, Grebely J. When Time Is of the Essence: Hepatitis C Virus RNA Point-of-Care Testing in 15 Minutes Becomes a Reality. J Infect Dis. 2026 Jan 22:jiaf652. PMID: 41569266.
Peters RPH, Manguro G, Ong'wen PA, Mdingi MM, Applegate TL, Stuart R, Harding-Esch EM, Manabe YC, Ndowa F, Van Der Pol B. Point-of-care testing to strengthen sexually transmitted infection case management in resource-constrained settings. Sex Transm Infect. 2026 Jan 14:sextrans-2025-056833. doi: 10.1136/sextrans-2025-056833. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41535122.
Applegate TL, Causer LM, Gow I, et al. Paving the way for quality assured, decentralised point-of-care testing for infectious disease in primary care - Real world lessons from remote Australia. Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2024 Dec 24:1-14. PMID: 39719681.
Lafferty L, Applegate TL, et al. Pre-market health systems barriers and enablers to infectious diseases point-of-care diagnostics in Australia: qualitative interviews with key informants. BMC Infect Dis. 2024 Nov 19;24(1):1317. PMID: 39558237
Bonello M*, Applegate TL*, et al, on behalf of investigators and partner investigators of the AMR Hub. (2024) The AMR Hub: a public–private partnership to overcome barriers to commercialisation and deliver antimicrobial stewardship innovations. Microbiology Australia 45, 48–53. *contributed equally to this article.
Chandra S, Broom A, Ridge D, Peterie M, Lafferty L, Broom J, Kenny K, Treloar C, Applegate TL. Treatment 'cultures', sexually transmitted infections and the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Sociol Health Illn. 2025 Jan;47(1):e13832. PMID: 39221888
Grebely J, Matthews S, Causer LM, Feld JJ, Cunningham P, Dore GJ, Applegate TL. We have reached single-visit testing, diagnosis, and treatment for hepatitis C infection, now what? Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2024 Mar;24(3):177-191. PMID: 38173401.