Glen Westall

Career Summary: A/Prof Glen Westall is a Consultant Chest Physician, and Head of the Paediatric Lung Transplant Program at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. He trained at King’s College London, and completed his respiratory training at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne and Royal Brompton Hospital, London. A/Prof Westall successfully applied to the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council (AHMAC) to have paediatric lung transplantation recognized as requiring National Funding Centre (NFC) status in Australia and for the service to be established at the Alfred Hospital. In addition, A/Prof Westall is a lead Consultant in Victoria’s only dedicated Lung Fibrosis service that operates within the Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine at the Alfred Hospital. A/Prof Westall is has established and is principal investigator of open-access national tissue bank consisting of explanted lung tissue collected at the time of lung transplantation from patients with severe ILD. A/Prof Westall is an integral member of an Australian-wide network of ILD researchers that aims to establish lung cell lines derived from patients with ILD.

Research Support: A/Prof Westall oversees the research portfolio of the Alfred’s lung transplant service. As an academic clinician, he has established a number of translational projects with industry partners that have taken discoveries in basic science to the clinical interface. In particular he has established biorepositories that collect and store both normal lung tissue (from deceased patients whose families consent to release lung tissue for research) and fibrotic lungs. In addition, A/Prof Westall has established a biorepository of blood and BAL samples that are collected longitudinally on all patients undergoing lung transplantation. These transplant samples provide the basis of a research model that has resulted in a number of research collaborations whereby the immune response to infection (ever-present in the immunosuppressed host) and transplantation can be studied. A/Prof Westall has developed a wider interest into how activation of the innate immune system early post-lung transplant influences clinical outcomes. Establishing a research platform in pulmonary xenotransplantation has resulted in the award of an internationally competitive Career Development Award. Clinically, A/Prof Westall is a principal and co-investigator on numerous studies in viral immunity, lung fibrosis, and lung transplantation. A/Prof Westall is the principal investigator of a number of other transplant studies that have generated over $550,000 in financial support over the past 5 years. Additionally, A/Prof Westall is a co-investigator in a large number of studies that have generated over $2 million research funding to The Alfred and Monash University.