Gilda Tachedjian PhD

Professor Gilda Tachedjian Heads the Life Sciences Discipline and Retroviral Biology and Antivirals Laboratory and is Co-Head of the Eliminate HIV Program at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia. She is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and holds adjunct and honorary Professorial appointments at the Department of Microbiology at Monash University, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, The University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, and RMIT University.

She has been involved in HIV research for over 20 years having discovered mutations in the HIV reverse transcriptase currently used in genotyping algorithms for predicting drug resistance during her Ph.D. studies at Monash University and defining the role of HIV reverse transcriptase dimerization on enzyme function and virus replication during her postdoctoral studies at Columbia University in New York. In 2002 she was recruited to the Burnet Institute to establish an independent HIV research program and was subsequently awarded an NHMRC RD Wright Career Development Award in 2003 and NHMRC Senior Research Fellowships in 2009 and 2017.

She received the Fenner Award in 2012 from the Australian Society for Microbiology for her contributions to the virology discipline. Professor Tachedjian’s current research focuses on identifying antiviral strategies for HIV treatment and prevention including defining the role of the vaginal microbiota in modulating HIV transmission. She is the President of the Australasian Virology Society and Executive member of the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Virology Research. She serves on NHMRC grant review panels in the microbiology discipline and on several editorial boards including Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Prof Tachedjian has served as a mentor for over 38 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and she has published over 88 papers on HIV antivirals, drug resistance, microbicides, and the antimicrobial and immune-modulatory effects of vaginal microbiota metabolites.