Professor Kumar Visvanathan is a leading infectious diseases physician and researcher affiliated with the University of Melbourne's Department of Medicine at St Vincent's Hospital. He holds multiple key leadership positions, including Deputy Head of the Department, Precinct Lead (appointed in 2023), Academic Lead for St Vincent's Hospital, Co-Director of the Immunology Research Centre, and Clinical Director of Medicine and Emergency Services. As Group Leader of the Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases research group, he specializes in infectious diseases and the immunology of the innate immune system, with a career spanning over three decades. Visvanathan obtained his MBBS and PhD from the University of New South Wales and completed a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Rockefeller University in New York. He joined the academic Department of Medicine and the clinical Department of Infectious Diseases at St Vincent's Hospital in 2012, where he has since driven significant research and clinical integration initiatives.

His research focuses on elucidating the role of the innate immune system in infectious diseases, including viral hepatitis, septic shock, mycobacterial infections, primary and secondary liver cancers, and transplantation-associated infections, with the goal of developing novel therapeutics and biomarkers. He leads an active laboratory investigating projects such as innate immunological determinants in HIV and hepatitis C, progression from hepatitis B therapy to liver cancer, mechanisms of Golden Staph disease, interferon-stimulating genes in HCV, hepatocyte responses to HCV, human amnion epithelial cells for liver repair, and treatment discontinuation in chronic hepatitis B. Visvanathan has secured substantial funding, including multiple National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grants (e.g., AUD 1,209,585.10 from 2014-2018, AUD 575,048 from 2011-2014), Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Research grants (e.g., AUD 180,000 in 2013), and The CASS Foundation (AUD 60,000 in 2020). Key publications include 'Discontinuation of nucleot(s)ide analogue therapy in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B with finite treatment' (Gut, 2022), 'Long-term follow-up of patients in a prospective study of NA discontinuation identifies different patterns of HBsAg loss' (2024), 'The oral toll-like receptor-7 agonist GS-9620 in patients with chronic hepatitis B' (Journal of Hepatology, 2015), and studies on Toll-IL1 receptor responses in chronic hepatitis B (2016) and cytokine measures in monocytes (2019). His work has advanced clinical understanding of immune responses in liver diseases and sepsis, supporting clinician-researchers through university-hospital collaborations and contributing to innovative healthcare delivery.

Professional Email: kv@unimelb.edu.au