Kirby Institute Postgraduate Student Prize 2022

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Congratulations to Dr Nila Dharan, who was awarded the Kirby Institute’s Postgraduate Student Prize for 2022.

Nila Dharan is a senior research fellow with the Kirby Institute’s Biostatistics and Databases Program and Therapeutic and Vaccine Research Program. She is an infectious diseases physician with a research focus on international infectious diseases and public health. Her current research is focused on describing the spectrum of comorbidities among people with HIV in Australia and understanding the pathophysiology of ageing in older adults with HIV.

The paper for which Dr Dharan has received the award is "HIV is associated with an increased risk of age-related clonal hematopoiesis," which was published in Nature Medicine in 2021. The paper aims to understand the spectrum of comorbidities among persons living with HIV in Australia and understanding aging-related genetic changes in people with HIV.

The Kirby Institute Postgraduate Student Prize is an annual award given to the most significant first author paper by a Kirby Institute student, published in the previous calendar year in a peer-reviewed journal in the area of infectious diseases.

Dr Dharan presented her paper at the Kirby Institute Seminar Series earlier this month, where Professor Anthony Kelleher, director of the Kirby Institute, presented the award and commended Dr Dharan’s excellent work.

 

Dr Nila Dharan and Professor Anthony KelleherKirby Institute Postgraduate Student Prize 2022 recipient Dr Nila Dharan and Professor Anthony Kelleher, Director of the Kirby Institute.

Audience at the Kirby Institute Postgraduate Student Prize 2022 presentationAudience at the Kirby Institute Postgraduate Student Prize 2022 presentation.