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Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Murdoch Children's Research Institute

Professor Nigel Curtis is a clinician scientist involved in both clinical medicine and research. He is the leader of the Infectious Diseases Research Group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Melbourne, and Head of Infectious Diseases at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.

Professor Curtis did his pre-clinical training at the University of Cambridge and clinical training at St Mary's Medical School, University of London. He completed specialist training in paediatric infectious diseases with Fellowships in both London and Vancouver. He has also worked for short periods in The Gambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Professor Curtis undertook his laboratory training at Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, where he completed a PhD investigating the role of bacterial superantigen toxins in Kawasaki disease and in staphylococcal and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.

Professor Curtis' clinical and laboratory research focuses on improving the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases in children. Combining clinical trials with the latest immunological and molecular techniques, his research team is working on improving the immunodiagnosis of childhood TB (or not TB). The team is also investigating the innate and cellular immune response to BCG vaccine. Prof Curtis leads a large randomised controlled trial of neonatal BCG vaccination to investigate the immunomodulatory off-target ('non-specific') effects of this vaccine, including its ability to prevent infections, allergic disease and asthma (the MIS BAIR trial).

He is also the Chief Principal Investigator of the BRACE Trial at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. This is a large, multi-national phase 3 randomised controlled trial investigating the use of the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine for protection against COVID-19 in healthcare workers. The BRACE trial aims to recruit 10,000 healthcare workers across Australia, Europe and South America.

You can follow his tweets at @nigeltwitt.

Other Affiliations:
Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne
Head of Infectious Diseases, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne