ProfessorTony Cunningham

Professor Cunningham’s research focuses on HIV and HSV immunobiology including pathogenesis, seroepidemiology, antiviral treatment and vaccine development. He has a particular interest in delineating the interaction of HIV with macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs). His is one of the leading groups in the world studying HIV-macrophages and HIV-DCs. His many novel findings include confirming direct evidence of heterosexual vaginal transmission of HIV (with minimal trauma). He participated in the first and only molecular study of a cohort of long-term survivors infected with an attenuated strain of HIV by blood transfusion (Sydney Blood Bank Cohort), which still has important implications for vaccine development.

He has helped identify macrophage surface molecules involved in HIV infection, which are potential therapeutic targets, and studied the influence of host genetics on HIV replication. His work demonstrating a two-phase trafficking process of HIV from DCs to T cells has implications for inhibitor drug development.

Ongoing projects are investigating the manner in which HIV infection of Langerhans (dendritic) cells or macrophages, subverts the body’s natural antiviral defence by inhibiting the Interferon system.

Renowned also for his research on HSV, Professor Cunningham oversees an active program studying the immunology and neurobiology of HSV infection, partly aimed at developing better vaccine candidates. Additionally, as both HIV and HSV can infect DCs and prior HSV-2 infection is associated with greater than three-fold increase in HIV acquisition, his group is studying co-infection of DCs with HIV and HSV, including how HSV enhances HIV growth in DCs.

He has published more than 80 papers on herpesvirus vaccines, most recently on the vaccine for herpes zoster, recently showing its efficacy extends for >11 years even in the ageing. He and Dr Sandgren have developed a human lymph node model to examine the mechanism of action of this vaccine and RNA vaccines.