Professor Kiaran Kirk AM will deliver this year’s The 2023 Order of Australia Association – The Australian National University lecture on Humanity’s ongoing battle with infectious disease.

For most of humanity’s history, infectious disease has been an expected cause of death. Microscopic pathogens – viruses, bacteria, parasites – cause a range of diseases, many of them potentially fatal. The development of vaccines, and of antimicrobial drugs, has been a triumph of medical science in which the ANU has played a significant role. And yet vaccine-resistant and drug-resistant pathogens are continually emerging, necessitating the ongoing development of new vaccines, new drugs.
In his address Professor Kirk reflects on the contribution ANU has made, and continues to make, to the development of measures to prevent and treat infectious diseases, including bacterial infection, viral diseases such as smallpox, and the parasitic disease, malaria.