Scientific Advisors

Professor Michael Gantier leads the Nucleic Acids and Innate Immunity laboratory at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. With over 20 years of expertise in RNA biology, his work focuses on harnessing RNA to modulate innate immune responses for therapeutic benefit.

Trained as a biological engineer in France, he completed his PhD at University College Dublin before moving to Australia to work with Prof Bryan Williams on RNA therapeutics and innate immunity.

Since establishing his independent laboratory in 2015, Prof Gantier’s team has uncovered fundamental immunosuppressive mechanisms of RNA therapeutics, culminating in the discovery that RNA cleavage products mimic natural immune checkpoints against autoimmunity (Alharbi et al., Nature Immunology 2026).

In collaboration with Noxopharm, his group has developed a novel class of ultra short RNA based anti-inflammatory agents that have recently completed Phase 1 clinical trials (Sapkota et al. bioRxiv 2026).

Prof Gantier has received multiple international awards, published extensively in leading journals with over 85 publications to date (including Nature, Cell, Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, Nucleic Acids Research etc), and currently serves as Associate Editor of Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids.

Professor Marcel Nold, MD, FRACP is a consultant neonatologist in Monash Newborn, Professor for Paediatric Immunology with the Department of Paediatrics, Monash University and is a clinician-scientist at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research with a focus on interventional immunology and anti-inflammatory cytokines.  He studied medicine at the JW Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany and has worked in Germany, the USA and Australia.

Marcel’s work in translational molecular medicine aspires to develop and advance novel cytokine-based therapeutics towards clinical application, to bring urgently needed relief to patients with autoinflammatory and autoimmune illnesses such as systemic lupus erythematosus as well as viral illnesses such as influenza and COVID-19.

Marcel has over 70 peer-reviewed publications and is named on three patent families. His standing in cytokine research is evidenced by his key publications in Nature Immunology, Science Immunology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Marcel’s work has been recognised with multiple awards over three continents including the Georges Köhler Prize by the German Society of Immunology (2011) and the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Enterprise, Monash University (2018).  He has attracted over $22M in grant funding since his arrival in Australia in 2010.  As a sought-after expert and thought leader in his field, he has presented over 30 invited talks since 2011.

Prof Naresh Kumar is Professor of Organic / Medicinal Chemistry at the School of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney. He completed his PhD in the synthesis of novel anticancer compounds at the University of Wollongong.

Naresh has a strong track record in the design and synthesis of bioactive molecules, the major emphasis of his research has been in heterocyclic chemistry and, more recently, in medicinal chemistry and biomaterials.

 He has collaborated extensively with industry partners, giving him considerable experience in commercial development and was a founding member and chemistry team leader of UNSW spin-off company Biosignal Ltd. Naresh is an inventor on 27 patents covering a number of different technologies.

He has published 290 original papers in major peer-reviewed journals and seven book chapters and has attracted competitive research funding from ARC (Discovery and Linkage project grants), NHMRC (Project, Ideas and Development grants), and commercial contract research funding from the Australian biotech industry.

Associate Professor Amanda Saracino is a clinical and academic dermatologist. She leads the dermatology connective tissue disease clinic at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne and is an early-career researcher with a growing clinical and translational research program focusing on underlying aetiopathogenesis, molecular subtyping and targeted therapeutics for the skin manifestations of autoimmune rheumatic diseases (in particular lupus erythematosus and scleroderma – both systemic sclerosis and morphoea). Alongside this, Amanda has a busy private practice at Melbourne Dermatology Clinic.

A/Prof Saracino graduated from Monash University medical school in 2007 as Dux and recipient of the Sophie Davis Memorial Prize for the highest aggregate of marks for the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Medical Science. She completed her dermatology specialist training in both Melbourne (Fellow of the Australasian College of Dermatologists; recipient of the Ken Paver and President’s medals for academic excellence) and London (Royal College of Physicians / General Medical Council).

A/Prof Saracino has a PhD from University College London in the molecular aetiopathogenesis of autoimmune sclerotic skin diseases, and now holds an Associate Professor post at UCL, where she continues to collaborate.

As a respected authority in the field of skin manifestations of autoimmune connective tissue diseases, Amanda is a regular invited speaker, chair, and expert peer reviewer nationally and internationally.