Rate My Professor Alexandra Brown

Dr Alexandra Brown is a Post Doctorate Researcher in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy, Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Honours), and Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences, all awarded by the University of Newcastle. An early career researcher and respiratory immunologist, she is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs and the Immune Health Program at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. Dr Brown's research focuses on high-burden respiratory diseases, particularly examining interactions between bacterial and viral respiratory infections and host immune responses in asthmatic disease. Her goal is to better understand disease pathogenesis and discover novel therapeutic targets. Key research fields include respiratory diseases (40%), infectious diseases (30%), and immunology (30%).

Dr Brown has produced impactful publications, including 'Role for NLRP3 Inflammasome-mediated, IL-1ß-Dependent Responses in Severe, Steroid-Resistant Asthma' (2017, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine), 'Itaconate and Itaconate Derivatives Target JAK1 to Suppress Alternative Activation of Macrophages' (2022), 'Critical Role for Iron Accumulation in the Pathogenesis of Fibrotic Lung Disease' (2020, Journal of Pathology), 'Crucial Role for Lung Iron Level and Regulation in the Pathogenesis and Severity of Asthma' (2020), and 'Female Sex Hormones and the Oral Contraceptive Pill Modulate Asthma Severity through GLUT-1' (2025, Mucosal Immunology). With 48 journal articles and 42 conference outputs, her work has advanced knowledge in airway inflammation, inflammasome responses, and iron metabolism in lung disease. She contributes as an investigator to grants totaling over $4.7 million, such as NHMRC projects on immunometabolic mechanisms in asthma and COPD (2026), iron metabolism for severe asthma treatment (2024), and obesity-associated asthma management (2023). Awards include the 2016 ICI Travel Award from the Australasian Society for Immunology and the 2019 Faculty of Health and Medicine Research Travel Grant. Dr Brown has co-supervised three PhD completions on topics including sex hormones in asthma and immunometabolism in lung disease.