The University of Western Australia
Dr Lee Smith
Research Associate
School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
- Contact details
-
- Address
- School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of Western Australia (M504)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia
- Phone
- 9346 1697
- lee.smith@uwa.edu.au
- Location
- Room 2.02, L Block, QEII Medical Centre
- Biography
- Dr Lee Smith obtained his Bachelor of Science and Masters degrees from the University of Birmingham (UK) and worked on avian retroviruses at the Institute for Animal Health in the United Kingdom. He then moved to the Flinders University in South Australia to undertake a PhD on retrotransposon clusters in the vertebrate genome. Dr Smith worked for the Pest Animal Control CRC at UWA before obtaining a Raine Grant to begin his research on viral evolution.
- Key research
- Dr Smith researches viral evolution and virus-host interactions, with Dr Alec Redwood and Professor Geoff Shellam. His current project is looking at murine cytomegalovirus, which is the best animal model for human cytomegalovirus. The research utilizes viral strains from both the laboratory and wild, which is more clinically relevant that just studying laboratory strains. In particular, Dr Smith is interested in how different viral strains might have evolved to aid each other in order to evade the host immune response.
- Publications
- http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-6087-2008
- Funding received
- NH&MRC Grant
- Teaching
- Dr Smith lectures in the Master of Infectious Disease program and in third year microbiology courses. He also supervises the folowing PhD Students:
Andrea McWhorter- Complementation between co-infecting viral strains
Baca Chan- Characterising the hypervariable m15 gene in cytomegalovirus - Useful links
- http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-6087-2008
- Current projects
- Transplacental transfer of viruses, in collaboration with Associate Professor William Rawlinson, University of New South Wales.
Down regulation of multihistocompatibility complexes by MCMV, in collaboration with Dr Ann Hill, Oregon Health and Science University. - Research profile
- Research profile and publications