James McCarthy

Professor James McCarthy is a Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases within the Melbourne Medical School at the University of Melbourne. He holds joint appointments as Director of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Professor of Medicine at the Doherty Institute, and Laboratory Head of the McCarthy Lab at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Previously, he served as Professor of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Queensland, led a research team at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, and worked as an infectious diseases physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. McCarthy earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Melbourne and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

His research specializes in translational studies of infectious diseases using controlled human infection models. These involve deliberate infection of healthy volunteers with pathogens including Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria parasites, hookworms, and Streptococcus pyogenes to study disease mechanisms, diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs. A primary focus is malaria transmission, particularly gametocyte biology and transmission-blocking interventions assessed through human challenge trials, ex vivo analyses, CRISPR-edited parasites, proteomics, and microscopy. He developed the Brisbane human challenge system for antimalarial testing, now the preferred platform for investigational drugs, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and pharmaceutical companies. Key publications include Collins KA et al. (2020), 'A Plasmodium vivax experimental human infection model for evaluating efficacy of interventions,' Journal of Clinical Investigation 130:2920-2927; McCarthy JS et al. (2020), 'Safety and parasite clearance of artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum infection: A pilot and a randomised volunteer infection study in Australia,' PLoS Medicine 17:e1003203; Collins KA et al. (2018), 'A controlled human malaria infection model enabling evaluation of transmission-blocking interventions,' Journal of Clinical Investigation 128:1551-1562; Webster R et al. (2025), 'Adjunctive ruxolitinib attenuates inflammation and enhances immunity in volunteers experimentally infected with Plasmodium falciparum,' Science Translational Medicine 17:826; and Hla TK et al. (2025), 'Establishing the lowest penicillin concentration to prevent pharyngitis due to Streptococcus pyogenes using a human challenge model (CHIPS),' The Lancet Microbe 6:5. His work has produced over 500 peer-reviewed publications advancing antimalarial and antiparasitic development.

Professional Email: james.mccarthy@unimelb.edu.au