2018 Healthy Development Adelaide Award

Professor Helen Marshall was presented with the Healthy Development Adelaide Award at the 14th annual HDA Oration; ‘Protecting our children against serious infectious diseases'.

Professor Helen Marshall is a medical researcher with specialist training in child health, public health and vaccinology having completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Doctorate of Medicine, Master in Public Health, Diploma in Child Health and the international Advanced Vaccinology Course, Pasteur Merieux Institute, France. She is Professor in Vaccinology in the Adelaide Medical School and Deputy Director, Clinical and Translational Research of the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide and Senior Medical Practitioner and Director of VIRTU at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. She has been awarded three NHMRC Fellowships most recently a NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. In recognition of her research leadership she was awarded the South Australia Science Award for Excellence in Research for the Public Good and NHMRC’s “10 of the best” for 2016.

Oration overview: Immunisation programs introduced around the world have resulted in millions of lives saved. There is an exciting opportunity to further enhance this impact through using vaccines to harness herd immunity and improve protection against life-threatening diseases. Immunisation strategies that are designed to protect the individual as well as others in the community provide additional benefits in reducing disability and deaths from serious infectious diseases in our most vulnerable babies, children and young people. Australia has one of the best immunisation programs in the world but there’s still work to do to understand how we can best use vaccines to extend the benefits of immunisation beyond the individual to the whole community.