Rate My Professor Silvia Lee

Dr. Silvia Lee is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Curtin School of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Sciences within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. She holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours (BSc Hons) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Her career includes previous affiliations with the School of Biomedical Sciences at Curtin University, the University of Western Australia, and PathWest Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Lee's research specializes in viral immunology, focusing on human cytomegalovirus (CMV) and its associations with cardiovascular disease, vascular pathology, diseases of ageing, sensory neuropathy, and immune recovery in HIV patients and transplant recipients. She is a member of the immunology research team in Health Sciences at Curtin University and contributes to the Vascular and Metabolic Disorders group at Curtin MRI.

In collaboration with Associate Professor Patricia Price, Dr. Lee examines the role of CMV in diseases of ageing, including cardiovascular changes alongside Professor Chris Reid. The team investigates CMV's involvement in sensory neuropathy pathogenesis and clinical and immune recovery among HIV patients treated in Jakarta and Johannesburg. Her publications include 'Human Cytomegalovirus Infection and Cardiovascular Disease' (2023, Viral Immunology), 'An Evaluation of IL-10 Encoded by Cytomegalovirus in the Suppression of Antiviral Immunity' (2026, Pathogens), 'Coronary Artery Disease in People Living with HIV May Reflect Their CMV Burden' (2025, Pathogens), 'Relationship between cytomegalovirus antibody levels and neurocognitive decline' (2025, BMC Neurology), 'Variants of HCMV UL18 Sequenced Directly from Clinical Specimens Reveal Functional Diversity' (2022, Viruses), 'Sequencing Directly from Clinical Specimens Reveals Genetic Diversity in Clinical Cytomegalovirus Strains' (2021, Microbiology Spectrum), 'Challenging the Conventional Interpretation of HCMV Seronegativity' (2021, Viruses), 'A high burden of cytomegalovirus marks poor vascular health in transplant recipients more clearly than in the general population' (2019, Frontiers in Microbiology), 'The Detection of CMV in Saliva Can Mark a Systemic Infection with Active Replication in the Lungs of Lung Transplant Recipients' (2019, Frontiers in Microbiology), 'Cytomegalovirus infection alters phenotypes of different γδ T-cell subsets in treated HIV patients with discordant CD4+ T-cell recovery' (2017, Journal of Medical Virology), and 'Cytomegalovirus antibody and vascular pathology in renal transplant recipients' (2016, Journal of Medical Virology). These contributions highlight CMV's impact on immune and vascular health in clinical contexts.