Rate My Professor Aude Fahrer

Associate Professor Aude Fahrer is a research and teaching academic at the Australian National University’s Research School of Biology, within the Division of Biomedical Science and Biochemistry. She obtained her B.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in viral immunology from the University of Melbourne. She conducted her first postdoctoral research at Stanford University, USA, publishing on gamma delta T cells and oral tolerance using MHC tetramers and microarray technologies. Her second postdoctoral position was at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU, where she worked on mouse models of immunological defects and identified the first mutation in a chromosome condensin II subunit, kleisin β, that specifically disrupts T cell development. Joining ANU in 1999, she has over 20 years of experience leading the Fahrer Group in immunology.

The Fahrer Group focuses on characterizing novel proteins involved in immunology and cancer—following the prediction of over 2000 new protein isoforms in human and mouse genomes—and developing a simple, low-cost cancer immunotherapy via intratumoral injection of immune stimulants, which has progressed to phase I clinical trials at Canberra Hospital. Fahrer convenes the third-year course BIOL3141 Infection and Immunity and lectures in BIOL1004 Biology 2: Molecular and Cell Biology, BIOL3144 Molecular Immunology, and to medical school students. Her influential publications include "Induction of rapid T cell activation and tolerance by systemic presentation of an orally administered antigen" (Immunity, 1998), "A population of murine γδ T cells that recognize an inducible MHC class Ib molecule" (Science, 2000), "Attributes of γδ intraepithelial lymphocytes as suggested by their transcriptional profile" (PNAS, 2001), "A mutation in a chromosome condensin II subunit, kleisin β, specifically disrupts T cell development" (PNAS, 2007), and "Early T Cell Infiltration Correlates with Anti-CTLA4 Treatment Response in Murine Cancer Models" (Journal of Immunology, 2023). She contributed to ANU’s COVID-19 response including ACT wastewater surveillance and received the Vice-Chancellor’s HDR travel grant in 2018.