Professor Peter Timms | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Professor Timms is a nationally and internationally renowned microbiologist with specific expertise in the area of Chlamydia. His laboratory is acknowledged as the leading Australian laboratory and one of the leading groups internationally working on all aspects of chlamydial infections

• Research interests - His research group of 12 staff and post-graduate students is developing vaccines and new diagnostics for chlamydial diseases in humans and animals as well as an improved understanding of chlamydial genomics, cell biology and pathogenicity. He is also involved in research on the koala retrovirus, including the development of a vaccine. The group is widely acknowledged for its major contributions to chlamydial infections in koalas and other wildlife, including the development of a vaccine for koalas.

• Publications - He has published over 240 papers, reviews and book chapters in peer-reviewed international scientific journals such as, Nature Genetics (2018; Front Cover), Nature Vaccines (2018), PNAS (2018; Front Cover), Scientific Reports, Journal of Virology (Front Cover), Infection & Immunity, Molecular Microbiology, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Journal of Bacteriology (including front cover of the journal in 2009 for genome analysis of a koala strain of Chlamydia), PLoS Pathogens, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Trends in Microbiology, Bioinformatics. His papers have been cited over 5,400 times and he has a h-index of 45.

• Postgraduate student training - He has successfully graduated 20 PhD students in the past 15 years, many of whom have gone on to gain employment in high profile national and international locations.

• Commercialisation - He has significant experience in the commercialisation of biotechnological inventions, and is an inventor on 10 patents. His commercial achievements include; successful liscencing of patented SNP technology to Affymetrix; Chlamydia diagnostic applications and recently through inventorship on patents in the area of Chlamydia vaccine development.

• Professional contributions - He is a continuing member of the International Chlamydia Review Committee and a previous member of the International Chlamydia Society Executive. He was chair of the scientific committee for the 2007 International CBRS Chlamydia Conference (USA) and chair of the 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 Australian Chlamydia Conferences (Brisbane). He has served for several years on the NHMRC Grant Review Panels and in 2010 and 2012 served on the ERA Biological and Biotechnological Sciences Panel. He is editor of the Journal, Pathogens & Disease and a regular reviewer for a wide range of international journals. Within Australia, Timms contributes significantly to the Australian Society for Microbiology. He has served on National Council as Queensland representative, has been a member of the MASM Qualifications Committee, has served on the NEB for around 10 years as well as Chair of the National Examinations and Qualifications Board (NEQB) which is responsible for the prestigious award of Fellowship of the Australian Society for Microbiology (FASM).

Research Grants

Professor Timms has a highly successful track record in basic and applied research, as shown by his record for attracting competitive research funding; eg. NHMRC project grants (over M$5 funding), USA National Institutes of Health (NIH), ARC Discovery grants (3 grants), ARC Linkage grants (6 grants), Queensland Government NIRAP Scheme ($1.88M), Wesley Hospital Foundation (2 grants) as well as many smaller grants.