University Of New South Wales

Prof Peter White

BSc (King’s College London) Biotechnology, PhD (UCL) Molecular Microbiology, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences (BABS)

Tel: +612 9385 3733
Email: p.white@unsw.edu.au
Web:  https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-peter-andrew-white


Dr Rowena Bull


BSc Microbiology and Immunology, PhD Virology, Senior Lecturer of Immunovirology

Email: r.bull@unsw.edu.au
Phone: 02 9385 2777
Web: www.medicalsciences.med.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-rowena-bull

Peter White heads the Molecular Microbiology Laboratory, which is part of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences (BABS) and located in state-of-the-art facilities. Research in this multi-disciplined group encompasses the themes of molecular virology, viral diagnosis, viral evolution, antivirals and biotechnology.

Since the first recorded global pandemic of acute gastroenteritis in the mid 1990s, Peter White’s group has been instrumental in identifying and tracing the cause – pandemic GII.4 Noroviruses. Seminal work by White’s group has shown that the emergence of pandemic GII.4 Noroviruses is driven by two factors; i) the generation of point mutations in antigenic regions of the viral capsid, and ii) through recombination between two Noroviruses during a co-infection. Antiviral projects currently focus on two viruses, norovirus and hepatitis C virus, with the aim of identifying non-nucleoside polymerase inhibitors using high throughput screening (HTS) campaigns.

The University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052
AUSTRALIA

My laboratory is interested in understanding the interaction between host and virus and the resulting influence on disease outcome in humans. We examine a number of different viruses, including hepatitis C virus, norovirus, Influenza and Dengue. We take a multidisciplinary approach by integrating virology, immunology and bioinformatics tools. We have recently been using antigen-specific B cell sorting combined with single cell RNAseq to examine the viral and human factors that contribute to the delayed antibody response to hepatitis c virus.