Alan Baxter

Professor Alan Baxter is a medical graduate who completed a PhD in immunogenetics at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute under the supervision of Tom Mandel. He has worked as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and at Cambridge University, where he was a Supervisor in Pathology for Trinity College. He was president of the Australasian Society for Immunology from 2006-2008, a member of the Council of the Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia-Oceania 2012-2015, the Council of the International Union of Immunological Societies 2013-2017, and the MSRA Research Management Council since 2013. He established the Autoimmunity Research Group at the Centenary Institute, where he worked for nine years before taking up his current appointment as Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology and Director of the Comparative Genomics Centre of James Cook University. His work is funded by James Cook University,  the MSRA, Townsville Hospital and Health Service and the Queensland Department of Health.

He is known internationally for his contributions to the genetics of autoimmune disease and has published on the genetics of gastritis, lupus, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and the role of NKT cells in autoimmunity, and made major contributions to our understanding of gene/environment interactions in autoimmune disease.