Australian Fulbright Distinguished Chair to Conduct RNA Vaccine Research at K-State

Link to K-State Today Story

Brief Biography:

Professor Garry Myers is the Director of the Australian Institute for Microbiology & Infection (AIMI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney in 1999, followed by postdoctoral training at The Institute for Genome Research (TIGR, now the J. Craig Venter Institute, JCVI) in Rockville, Maryland, USA, where he worked on microbial genomics and pathogenesis. He joined the faculty at TIGR in 2005. In 2007, along with 14 TIGR colleagues, he co-founded the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

In 2014, Professor Myers was recruited back to Australia to join UTS and became the Director of AIMI in 2019. AIMI's research applies cutting-edge methods and tools to understand how microbes grow, live, adapt, and survive, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and infectious diseases. Under his leadership, AIMI’s research has expanded from basic science to translational outcomes, including the development of novel RNA vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. More recently, his group has conducted pioneering genome-scale analyses to decipher chlamydial biology, incorporating RNA transcriptomics and epigenomics at both bulk cell and single-cell scales.

Through global collaborations, Professor Myers has secured significant funding in both the USA and Australia. This includes recent funding from the New South Wales (NSW) government to establish the Vaccine & RNA Design Centre (VRDC) at UTS. The VRDC is developing workflows and pipelines to create sovereign capabilities for the rational bioinformatic design of mRNA vaccines and other candidate molecules. It is closely aligned with the NSW GMP Pilot RNA Manufacturing Facility, which is currently under construction. Additionally, Professor Myers and his collaborators at AIMI and across Australia have secured Australian Federal Government medical research funding to develop an mRNA vaccine for urinary tract infections in humans. They also have multiple animal mRNA vaccine projects underway, supported by commercial and industry partnerships.

This work led to his successful appointment as the 2024 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Agriculture and Life Sciences at Kansas State University, where he will collaborate with the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center.