Monash Microbiome Symposium 2026
Description
Monash Microbiome Symposium 2026
Date: 30th October 2026, 8.45am-5.00pm
Venue: The Green Chemical Futures Building
13 Rainforest Walk, Monash University Clayton Campus (Building 86)
Join us for a day of cutting-edge microbiome research showcasing the breadth of discoveries from across Monash University. The symposium will feature presentations spanning Diet and the Microbiome, Microbiome in Disease, Antimicrobial Resistance and the Microbiome, and Microbes in the Environment, providing opportunities to learn, connect and foster new interdisciplinary collaborations.
We welcome early career researchers including graduate students and post-docs to register for a poster presentation. The deadline for poster presentation registration is 30/09/2026. A poster prize totalling $100 will be awarded by Yakult to the best poster presentation. Link to register here (free): https://forms.gle/NyqwKX7E24dHMEuf7
Program Schedule
The scientific program will run from 8:45 am to 4:00 pm, followed by networking drinks and nibbles from 4:00–5:00 pm.
845-900: Welcome
ANTI-MICROBIAL RESISTANCE
Chair: Dr Andre Mu
900-945: AMR keynote speaker: Prof Anton Peleg
945-1005: Dr Jane Hawkey "AMRrules: expert-curated interpretive standards for AMR genotypes"
1005-1025: Dr Tom Watts "Understanding the persistence strategies of antibiotic resistant opportunistic pathogens in the environment"
1025-1100: Break
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBES
Chair: Dr Francesco Ricci
1100-1120: Dr Ashleigh Kropp "A novel and widespread mechanism of membrane-coupling drives microbial respiration"
1120-1140: Dr Christpher Blake "Eco-evolutionary feedback shapes microbial community dynamics"
1140-1200: Dr Anthony Kohtz "Structure-guided insights into the metabolism of divergent methanogens"
1200-1300: Lunch
DIET AND THE MICROBIOME
Chair: Dr CK Yao
1300-1345: Keynote speaker: Emma Saltzmann: "Dietary microbial exposure and the contribution to the host gut microbiome"
1345-1405: A/Prof Emma Halmos: "Emulsifiers in the diet & inflammatory bowel disease"
1405-1425: Dr Barbara Cardoso "Diet and dementia with a focus on the microbiota"
1425-1500: Break
MICROBIOME AND DISEASE
Chair: Dr Rikeish Muralitharan
1500-1520: Dr Paul Gill: "Investigating the immunomodulatory and clinical effects of using dietary fibre intervention to target the gut microbiota in patients with Long COVID"
1520-1540: Dr Celine Pattaroni: "Early-life host-microbial interactions and asthma"
1540-1600: Dr Ashray Gunjur: "The gut microbiome in pancreato-biliary cancers"
1600-1615: Announcement of Yakult Poster Prize
1615-1700: Drinks & networking
Who should attend?
All researchers, clinicians, students and microbiome enthusiasts are warmly welcome.
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR STAFF AND STUDENTS OF MONASH UNIVERSITY
Anti-Microbial Resistance Speakers
Prof Anton Peleg
Anton Peleg is Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology and Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Alfred Hospital and Monash University. He is also a research group leader in the Department of Microbiology, Monash University. His research spans clinical to basic research, with a focus on hospital-acquired infections, antimicrobial resistance, infections in immunocompromised hosts and understanding mechanisms of disease caused by hospital pathogens. He has a particular clinical interest in complex infections in highly vulnerable patient groups, including patients with cystic fibrosis, lung and stem cell transplant recipients, and infections in patients with burns or in intensive care. Anton is a founding member of the Monash Centre to Impact AMR, launched early 2020.
Dr Jane Hawkey
Dr Jane Hawkey is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow in the Department of Infectious Diseases, where she co-leads the Translational Microbial Genomics Program. She is a computational microbiologist whose research uses genomics to better understand the evolution, resistance mechanisms, and transmission pathways of hospital-associated bacterial pathogens. Her work includes the development of genomic methods to track plasmid transmission in Klebsiella, providing critical insights into how resistance genes spread in clinical environments. She is currently the lead bioinformatician for the global AMRrules consortium, which aims to establish international standards for interpreting genotypic antimicrobial resistance across a wide range of bacterial species.
Dr Tom Watts
Dr Tom Watts is the Medical Microbiology Team Leader of Climate & Microbiology Research Unit in the Department of Microbiology at Monash University. His current research uses a combination of molecular microbiology, bacterial genetics, and ‘omics-based approaches to understand the physiology and ecology of opportunistic pathogens in natural and gastrointestinal environments. Previously, Tom completed his PhD at Monash University with Professor Julian Rood where he investigated the biology of large clostridial toxin plasmids. Following his PhD, he had a two-year stint as a Research Fellow in sweltering Singapore with Professor Kimberly Kline, where he worked to characterise virulence factors of the opportunistic pathogen Enterococcus faecalis.
Environment and Microbes Speakers
Dr Ashleigh Kropp
Dr Ashleigh Kropp is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Grinter Lab at Monash University. She completed her PhD in Microbiology at Monash University in 2025, working with the Grinter and Greening labs to uncover how microbes extract energy from atmospheric trace gases. Her work combines microbial physiology, genetics, and structural biology, particularly cryo-EM, to reveal how respiratory enzymes are organised within the membrane. She is co-first author on a 2023 Nature paper on bacterial hydrogen-scavenging enzymes, and has since published works describing a novel mechanism of microbial respiration termed long-range quinone transport.
Dr Chrisopher Blake
Christopher Blake is a Research Fellow in the McDonald Lab at Monash University studying the eco-evolutionary dynamics of model microbial systems. His research investigates how evolution shapes ecological diversity, with a focus on identifying the conditions under which evolutionary processes promote or reduce biodiversity. He combines experimental evolution, microbial ecology, and genomics to understand the mechanisms that drive community assembly and stability.
Dr Anthony Kohtz
Anthony is a microbiologist and biochemist who completed his PhD at Montana State University, specializing in strange methanogenic archaea living in hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. Afterwards he moved to Melbourne to join the Climate Microbiology Research Unit led by Prof Chris Greening where he is now an ARC DECRA Fellow.
Diet and Microbiome Speakers
Emma Saltzmann
The aim of my research is to explore the role of foodborne microbes in shaping the gut microbiome composition and influencing host health. My project seeks to explore the microbiome of food, assessing the microbial profile of common food types and the impact of food preparation and storage methods on bacterial viability. Moreover, we will seek to understand how dietary-derived bacteria may colonise the gut and contribute to host health. I hope that my research will help to inform the food industry as well as health professionals about healthful food properties that can be imparted by their unique microbiomes and how this information could be harnessed to help design novel diet-based therapeutics.
A/Prof Emma Halmos
Emma Halmos is an Associate Professor of gastroenterology and senior research dietitian at Monash University, Alfred Health, and co-founder and Head of Research for the international dietitians’ organisation GI DREAM. Her expertise is the field of dietary management of gastrointestinal conditions, including IBS and IBD. Emma’s scientific achievements have had a major impact in academia and clinical practice. Most notably, her pivotal feeding study that demonstrated the low FODMAP diet was efficacious in treating IBS. This study launched a major change globally in attitude and enthusiasm towards dietary management and was featuring on the cover of Gastroenterology and has been cited >1800 times. Emma reputation is internationally renowned and she has presented her work at several national and international conferences, including being the first dietitian invited to speak at the plenary of ECCO, world’s largest IBD forum attended by over 8000 delegates. She was also lead coordinator for the first ECCO consensus guidelines for diet in IBD management. In her current leadership role, Emma is leading research into the role of therapeutic diets for IBD management, including assessment of the role of dietary emulsifiers in Crohn’s disease pathogenesis and treatment. Emma supervises PhD students, most of whom are dietitians and is passionate about inspiring and guiding other dietitians to enter into research.
Dr Barbara Cardoso
Dr Barbara R Cardoso is a nutritional biochemist with a Masters and a PhD from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and international experience attained from research appointments in Brazil and Spain. She has developed breakthrough studies that combine her skills in nutrition, clinical trials, analytical chemistry, proteomics and molecular biology to unravel the biochemistry of selenium and its implications in age-associated cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. She also has an interest in investigating the intake of nuts as a dietary strategy to slow age-associated cognitive decline.
Microbiome in Disease Speakers
Dr Paul Gill
Paul Gill is currently a Research Fellow at the Department of Immunology, School of Translational Medicine, Monash University. His research investigates the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination, particularly in immunosuppressed patients. This is as part of the PROPHECY study led by Professor Menno van Zelm. Paul also holds an honorary position at the Eastman Dental Institute, University College London, where he completed postdoctoral research studying the role of innate immunity in Inflammatory Bowel disease. He completed his PhD at the Department of Gastroenterology at Monash University, where is research examined the interaction between dietary metabolites short-chain fatty acids and the human immune system. He has expertise in clinical research, particularly within Gastroenterology and Nutrition & Dietetics.
Dr Céline Pattaroni
Céline Pattaroni is a Group Leader in the department of Immunology (STM) at Monash University and Program Lead within the Skin, Inflammation, Informatics and Neoplasia (SkIIN) Discovery Program. She specialises in systems immunology, with a focus on elucidating the cellular, microbial, and molecular architecture of human skin in both health and inflammatory disease. Her work integrates large-scale single-cell, epigenomic, transcriptomic, and microbiome datasets to construct a comprehensive, data-driven framework for understanding barrier immunity and the factors that drive immune heterogeneity across individuals and tissues. Dr Pattaroni’s expertise spans computational biology, immunology, and host–microbe interactions. Before establishing her skin-focused research program, she contributed to international efforts in early-life respiratory research, characterising how microbial colonisation and immune maturation shape susceptibility to childhood wheeze and asthma. This early work laid the foundation for her current interest in how tissue environments, microbial communities, and immune networks interact to maintain homeostasis or promote pathology. At Monash, she leads a multidisciplinary team at the interface of immunology and translational dermatology. Working closely with clinical and industry partners, her group develops analytical frameworks and integrative multi-omics approaches to elucidate the organisation and regulation of the barrier site microenvironment.
Dr Ashray Gunjur
Dr Ashray Gunjur is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Eastern Health, as well as a Senior Lecturer and Laboratory Head at the Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash University. He is also affiliated with the Cancer Program at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute. Ashray completed his medical internship and basic physician training at Melbourne Health, followed by advanced training in medical oncology at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and Austin Hospital. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in December 2020. He subsequently undertook a PhD at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, funded by prestigious awards from the General Sir John Monash Foundation and Cancer Research UK. His PhD focused on the relationship between the gut microbiome and outcomes to immune checkpoint blockade, and was co-supervised by Dr Trevor Lawley (Senior Group Leader, Host–Microbiota Interactions Laboratory, Wellcome Sanger Institute) and Dr David Adams (Senior Group Leader, Experimental Cancer Genetics Laboratory). Using deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing and genome-resolved metagenomics, he identified a strain-level microbial signature predictive of response to immune checkpoint blockade across multiple cancer types, with regimen-specific effects (published in Nature Medicine). Following completion of his PhD, Ashray continued as a post-doctoral Clinical Research Fellow at The Sanger, supported by an ESMO research fellowship and an RACP research establishment fellowship. His post-doctoral work focused on the relationship between gut microbiota and pancreatobiliary cancers, an area of significant unmet clinical need. In April 2026, he relocated to Melbourne, Australia, to establish his independent research program, alongside a joint appointment at Eastern Health. In his clinical role, he primarily cares for patients with melanoma and advanced skin cancers, and contributes to immuno-oncology clinical services.
Organising Committee
Amelia Belich
Amelia Belich is an Accredited Practising Dietitian with over 5 years of experience as a clinical dietitian. Amelia completed a Bachelor of Nutrition Science in 2018, and a Master of Dietetics at Monash University in 2021. She has a special interest in the management of gastrointestinal conditions and gained clinical experience working in both Australia and the UK. She recently started working in the Diet Innovations in GI Research Lab, Eastern Health Clinical School at Monash University as a research assistant.
Dr Ashray Gunjur
Dr Ashray Gunjur is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Eastern Health, as well as a Senior Lecturer and Laboratory Head at the Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash University. He is also affiliated with the Cancer Program at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute. Ashray completed his medical internship and basic physician training at Melbourne Health, followed by advanced training in medical oncology at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and Austin Hospital. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in December 2020. He subsequently undertook a PhD at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, funded by prestigious awards from the General Sir John Monash Foundation and Cancer Research UK. His PhD focused on the relationship between the gut microbiome and outcomes to immune checkpoint blockade, and was co-supervised by Dr Trevor Lawley (Senior Group Leader, Host–Microbiota Interactions Laboratory, Wellcome Sanger Institute) and Dr David Adams (Senior Group Leader, Experimental Cancer Genetics Laboratory). Using deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing and genome-resolved metagenomics, he identified a strain-level microbial signature predictive of response to immune checkpoint blockade across multiple cancer types, with regimen-specific effects (published in Nature Medicine). Following completion of his PhD, Ashray continued as a post-doctoral Clinical Research Fellow at The Sanger, supported by an ESMO research fellowship and an RACP research establishment fellowship. His post-doctoral work focused on the relationship between gut microbiota and pancreatobiliary cancers, an area of significant unmet clinical need. In April 2026, he relocated to Melbourne, Australia, to establish his independent research program, alongside a joint appointment at Eastern Health. In his clinical role, he primarily cares for patients with melanoma and advanced skin cancers, and contributes to immuno-oncology clinical services.
Dr Andre Mu
Andre Mu is a Senior Lecturer and Laboratory Head with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and is affiliated with the Biomedicine Discovery Institute's Infection, and the Metabolism, diabetes, and obesity Programs. He is also the Co-Lead of the AMR Evolution & Protective Microbiomes theme within the Centre to Impact AMR. Andre has over 14 years of training across five world-leading institutions spanning three continents, each position supported by prestigious individual research fellowships, including: - Endeavour Research Fellowship (Doherty Institute, Australia; and UC San Diego, USA) - NOMIS Foundation Research Fellowship (Salk Institute, USA) - EMBL-EBI & Sanger Research Fellowship (Wellcome Sanger Institute and European Bioinformatics Institute, UK) As a microbial ecologist and bioinformatician, Andre has a particular interest in the mechanisms that underpin the role of commensal microorganisms in facilitating host health and disease.
Dr Rikeish Muralitharan
I am a clinician‑scientist with expertise in hypertension and gut–vascular physiology. My research program focuses on integrating physiological and dietary approaches to improve BP control by targeting the gut. I have led multiple studies involving complex workflows, advanced phenotyping, BP monitoring, and have a strong publication record in cardiovascular and translational research. I have co-authored 25 publications (including 3 corresponding author publications) at 2.5 years post-PhD in top cardiovascular journals including European Heart Journal, Circulation Research, Cardiovascular Research, and Hypertension. Within the Hypertension Research Laboratory, I lead the translation arm. I have secured >$400,000 in funding from the National Heart Foundation of Australia, Australian Stroke and Heart Research Accelerator, and High Blood Pressure Research Foundation Australia.
Dr Francesco Ricci
I am a Team Leader within the Climate Microbiology Research Unit, where I investigate how microorganisms respond to environmental change and shape ecosystem functioning and resilience. My research spans three interconnected areas: a) coral microbiology, with a focus on understanding coral–microbe interactions and developing microbial solutions to enhance reef resilience to anthropogenic stressors; b) aquatic chemosynthesis, to determine how microorganisms use chemical energy sources to support productivity across key marine environments; and c) extreme-environment microbiology, to explore microbial adaptation, dispersal and community assembly in systems such as the deep sea and Antarctic volcanoes.
Dr CK Yao
Dr CK Yao is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Research Fellow at the Department of Gastroenterology, Eastern Health Clinical School. She was previously a senior member of the FODMAP translational research team that helped establish the Monash low FODMAP diet as first-line management for Irritable bowel syndrome and now co-leads an innovative research program focused on expanding dietary treatment options for individuals with inflammatory bowel disease and DGBIs.
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