Najla Nasr
Najla Nasr BSc (1995); MPhil (2000); PhD (2005)
Career summary
Dr Nasr is an immunologist and virologist with 20 years of expertise in investigating HIV transmission and pathogenesis, human skin, and mucosal immunology. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney and a Group Leader at WIMR. She is internationally recognised for her discoveries of how HIV manipulates innate immunity in its target cells by inhibiting interferon (IFN) production to avoid detection and establish chronic infection. Dr Nasr’s HIV research has two streams reflecting the global approach: prevention and cure.
For a cure, Dr Nasr is focussing on eradicating HIV from persistently HIV- infected CD4 T cells by CAR T cell immunotherapeutic approach after reactivation of the dormant infection with interferons and this is currently being modelled in humanised mice model in WEHI.
Dr Nasr’s second area of research is the dynamics of HIV transmission in the anogenital mucosa. She has defined the full array of myeloid cell subsets that inhabit these tissues, and their interactions with HIV. She is currently defining the resident memory CD4 T cells and she aims to identify dendritic and T cells that could be targeted by vaccines for prevention.
Dr Nasr’s access to samples from people living with HIV and partnerships with surgeons at major hospitals in Sydney to have a continuous supply of every tissue (in both steady and inflamed states) that HIV encounters make her internationally uniquely qualified to achieve her overarching goal in contributing to the efforts of prevention and a cure to enhance the quality of life for millions of individuals living with HIV. The human tissue research is especially important as multiple HIV vaccines developed in Macaques have failed in human clinical trials.
Dr Nasr developed a new Honours Program in 2017 and her leadership in curriculum design led to her appointment in 2022 as the School of Medical Science teaching lead in the Sydney Dental School for 4 units of study (UoS) at the undergraduate level and for the Oral and Systematic Bioscience theme in 6 UoS at the postgraduate level in the Dental Medical degree.
Research support - including grants and fellowships
In the last 6 years, Dr Nasr secured A$3.6 million in research funding. $1.3 million were awarded as CIA. This includes a NHMRC Ideas Grant of $1.023 million (2024-2027), $200,000 from a philanthropic relationship with the Neil and Norma Hill Foundation (2023-2025), $80,000 in FMH Emerging Star funding (2023-2024), $20,000 Seed Funding from Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute (2022-2023). $2.292 million were awarded as CIB-CID from 2 NHMRC Project Grants and $742,000 from 9 Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Research (ACH2/4) Grants.
Contribution to field of research
Dr Nasr authored 34 articles in Q1 SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR) and in the top 10% most cited journals, with senior author publications in PLoS Pathogens, Frontiers, and Viruses; first authorships in Blood, J Immunology and J Virology; middle author in Nature Communications, Cell Reports and J Clinical Investigations. Publications have been widely cited (2000/h-index 24). Dr Nasr lead author publication on their discovery of HIV reactivation by IFN (PLoS Pathogens, 2021) has reshaped the understanding of dormant HIV reactivation and was instrumental in securing her Ideas Grant (2023-2027) aiming at eliminating dormant HIV.
Collaborations
Dr Nasr collaborates nationally and internationally with:
• Many surgeons in Sydney as she established a research program in which colorectal, urological, and gynaecological specialists come together with basic researchers to study all the human tissues that HIV encounters during transmission.
• Prof Barbara Shacklett (University of California, USA) and Prof Andrew Harman (WIMR) to define the tissue resident memory T cells in anogenital tissues that can be exploited by mucosal vaccines to prevent HIV transmission.
• HIV clinicians and researchers including Profs Anthony Kelleher (UNSW), Sharon Lewin (Doherty Institute), Marc Pellegrini (Centenary Institute and WEHI), and Tony Cunningham to assess whether dormant HIV can be eradicated upon reactivation with IFN.
• Cancer clinicians and researchers including Dr Kenneth Micklethwaite (WIMR, Cancer Research) and Dr Kavitha GowriShankar (KRI, Cancer Research) and in collaboration with Prof Tony Cunningham to assess whether CAR T cells can kill HIV reactivated cells.
Community engagement and participation
My partnership with surgeons granted me a unique access to all tissues that HIV encounters. I have trained surgeons in immunological techniques and basic researchers in my team have been trained in surgical techniques to bridge the gap between research and clinical practices.
Professional involvement
Dr Nasr’s was a member of the committee who designed the PC3 for WIMR and she has also co-written the PC3 manual to get the lab accredited by OGTR. Dr Nasr was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (2019-2022) for WSLHD as she evaluated human ethics applications. Dr Nasr is a Faculty Member of WIMR, and she chaired the PC3, and the Honours Committees (2019-2022) and she is now contributing to the Career Development Committee. Dr Nasr also served as a member of the University of Sydney Academic Board (2022-2023) and she contributed to the decision-making processes based on her expertise and who she represented. Her commitment to advance scientific discourse is evident by her being on the conference organizing committees, chairing sessions, and judging presentations for the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Research and the Australasian Virology Society.
International standing
Dr Nasr international recognition is evidenced by her recent invited oral presentations at the Keystone Symposia in Colorado, USA in 2023 and to the International Symposium of Dendritic Cells in Cairns, in 2022. She was also fully funded as an invited speaker at the Indo-Australia Biotechnology Conference in India in 2016. Dr Nasr research findings have garnered invitations to write reviews in her field, recently in Viruses in 2021 and Frontiers in 2022.
Supervision and mentoring
Dr Nasr led to completion the supervision of 3 PhD, 3 MPhil, 12 Honours students, 1 Dalyell, 2 Summer Research students, and mentored 3 post-docs. Notably, an honours student had the highest mark in the Faculty of Sciences and received a University Medal. One summer student won the Dean's Award Prize. One PhD thesis passed without emendations and was rated in the best 5% of theses the examiners have ever reviewed. The mentoring of one post doc led to their appointment as a lecturer at Macquarie University in 2022.
Peer review involvement
In addition to NHMRC reviews, Dr Nasr evaluates grants from international funding bodies like the Medical Research Council (MRC) UK, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), Switzerland. Dr Nasr is also a reviewer for international Journals including Frontiers, iScience, Acta Biomaterialia, Open Forum Infectious Diseases, and Communication Biology.
Top 5 publications in the last 5 years
• Van Dijk FW, …, Nasr N. Characterising plasmacytoid and myeloid AXL+ SIGLEC6+ dendritic cell functions and their interactions with HIV. PLoS Path 2024. PMID: 38924030.
• Rana H,… Nasr N, …, Cunningham AL. Herpes Simplex Virus spreads rapidly in human foreskin, partly driven by chemokine-induced redistribution of Nectin-1 on keratinocytes. PLoS Path 2024. PMID: 38857290.
• York J, …, Nasr N. Strategies to eliminate the CD4 T cells HIV viral reservoir via CAR T cell immunotherapy. Frontiers Immunol 2022 – PMID:35572509.
• O’Neil TR, …, Nasr N. The role of tissue resident memory CD4 T cells in Herpes Simplex Viral and HIV Infection. Viruses 2021 – PMID: 33668777.
• Tong O, … Nasr N. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells have divergent effects on HIV infection of initial target cells and induce a pro-retention phenotype. PLoS Pathogen 2021 – PMID: 33872331.