Biosketch
Stephen Locarnini’s major research interest since 2003
has included viral hepatitis and antiviral chemotherapy. This
area embraces the basic virology of the various agents of hepatitis,
the immunopathogenesis of hepatitis, as well as prevention and
public health control measures. Recently, he has been directly
involved in patient advocacy issues through the ACT-HBV initiative
and also policy development for the Australian Government on hepatitis
B diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. However, the treatment
of hepatitis B and C with antiviral agents represents the greatest
challenge not only from a drug target perspective, but because
of the challenges of resistance and lack of education and expertise
by the greater practitioner population. Even more recently the
research focus of Prof Locarnini’s group has been on cellular
innate responses to viral infection and replication especially
the specific interaction of HBV precore protein and the Toll-like
receptor system, in collaboration with A/Professor Kumar Visvanathan.
This has already resulted in a significant paradigm shift in our
understanding of hepatitis B pathogenesis and the possibility
of new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches. Prof Locarnini’s
minor research interest is in sexually transmitted infections
of man, especially infections caused by the human immunodeficiency
(HIV) virus, the herpes viruses and the human papillomaviruses.
The impact of virus-virus interactions in the setting of antiviral
therapy has resulted in a major initiative of researching the
natural history of liver disease in patients with HIV-HBV co-infection
in the era of HAART. He also has an interest in intellectual property
issues as applied to clinical virology.
During his research career, Stephen Locarnini has published 164
papers in peer-reviewed journals, written 13 invited editorials
as well as 69 book chapters/reviews and co-edited a text book
on HBV which is now in its second edition in 2008. He has 32 National
and 92 International invited presentations and provides consultant
services to all the major pharmaceutical companies involved in
hepatitis B drug development. Furthermore, he is a named inventor
on 14 patients and two copyright agreements. Seven of these patients
have been licensed to Evivar Pty Ltd, a listed start-up company
jointly developed by Melbourne Health (RMH) and the Australian
Technology Fund (ATF) (see www.evivar.com). Stephen is a scientific
consultant and member of the Board of Management of Evivar Pty
Ltd.
In regards to his published papers:
Stephen Locarnini h-index is 47. Sum of the Times Cited: 6,287.
Average Citations per item: 18.49I
Prof Locarnini has received NHMRC support throughout his research
career mainly as chief investigator A. More recently, this has
been widened to include two NIH RO-1 grants as well as continuous
support from the pharmaceutical industry with independent contract-type
(fee for services) work.
Research Contribution & Recognition
Stephen Locarnini’s major contribution to the field in the
recent past has been in understanding how antiviral agents work
against HBV, the mechanisms of antiviral drug resistance and the
prevention of drug-resistance. His Molecular Research and Development
group has developed novel assays to monitor in the patient, the
effect of the antiviral agent on HBV replication, both positive
and negative. More recently, his group has been collaborating
with Dr Kumar Visvanathan on the innate immune response and Professor
Sharon Lewin on the adaptive immune response and together have
been fundamentally changing and challenging the previous existing
models of liver disease pathogenesis. Furthermore, virus-virus
interactions and co-infections present another layer of complexity
both in terms of clinical outcomes and pathogenetic mechanisms.
In the setting of HIV-HBV co-infection, the collaboration with
Prof Lewin has been particularly productive. These contributions
to the field have been recognised by the frequent invitations
which he personally receives to present his lab groups data at
international meetings as well as to write editorials in the leading
journals, for example Gastroenterology (IF= 11.673). Furthermore,
Prof Locarnini is regularly invited to participate in NIH USA
consensus conferences as well as organise and participate in the
major liver disease meetings and the relevant clinical practice
organisations such as AASLD (American), EASL (European) and APASL
(Asia-Pacific). This has resulted in substantial input in shaping
clinical practice in most parts of the world.
We have established a novel patient management system based on
relational databases (SeqHepB) for monitoring and treating patients
with hepatitis B as well as drug-resistance. This facility is
the only one of its kind in the world to manage patients with
resistance and available on the web. My linkages in the Asia Pacific
region are built on strong networks through the WHO Collaborating
Centre for Virus Reference and Research (I am the Director) resulting
in collaborations in Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong and mainland
China as well as charing the Asia-Pacific chapter of ACT-HBV.
Supervision & Research Leadership
Stephen Locarnini currently supervises 3 post-graduate (1 PhD
and 2 MD) students directly and 3 students as co-supervisor. He
has 3 post-doctoral fellows working in his group and he provides
mentorship, scientific guidance and laboratory support (as well
as training).
Research Translation
From the IP portfolio Prof Locarnini has built up over the last
10-12 years several commercialisation activities have resulted:
1. License deals to Innogenetics, Belgium
2. License deals to Evivar Pty Ltd
3. VC Funding support for Innate Immune response IP
4. Excellent relationships with the Pharmaceutical and Diagnostic
Industry which can rapidly effect the translation from the laboratory
to the bed-side of Stephen’s groups’ research themes
and its collaborations.
Since Prof Locarnini’s PhD program in 1974-1976, the area
of research is essentially viral hepatitis. He did his PhD on
hepatitis A virus and made several important contributions including
the discovery of hepatitis A specific IgM which is the single
most important test for diagnosis of acute hepatitis A. There
was an interruption to his research work when he went back to
University and completed a medical degree from 1982 to 1986. His
hospital training finished in 1989 and he then returned to laboratory-based
medicine in early 1990. The focus of the research since this time
has been blood borne viruses: hepatitis B, hepatitis C and co-infection
with human immunodeficiency virus.
