Research and Development

PathWest has an on-going commitment to developing, evaluating and implementing the very latest diagnostic testing procedures and as a result, the Department of Microbiology has an active research and development program. This program adapts to the needs of the department, and of the broader medical and scientific community, but is generally of an applied nature.  Many projects are undertaken in collaboration with students and staff from various local and/or international universities or research organisations, and are often funded from extramural sources.

Current areas of interest include:

• Respiratory viruses
• SARS-CoV-2
• Arboviruses
• Neisseria gonorrhoeae surveillance
• Novel methods for antimicrobial susceptibility testing Early sepsis detection methods
• Multi-resistant organism detection and characterisation
• Clostridioides difficile
• Emerging infections
• Pathogen whole genome sequencing
• Human papillomaviruses
• Hepatitis C
• MRSA and VRE
• Fungal susceptibility testing
• Invasive fungal infections.