Siddhartha Mahanty

• 
  Associate Professor
  Siddhartha Mahanty

  smahanty@unimelb.edu.au

  View researcher's webpage

  03 8344 1972

Research Overview

Themes: Malaria, Immunology, Host Pathogens Interactions, SARS-CoV-2 infections

Discipline(s): Discovery Research, Global Health, Translational and Clinical Research

Dr Mahanty is an infectious diseases specialist and physician-scientist whose research focuses on host-parasite interactions in the pathogenesis of parasitic infections.  He received his medical training at UNSW, Sydney and Infectious Diseases training and an MPH at the University of Oklahoma in the U.S.A.  After clinical specialization, he pursued a career in research on parasite immunology, working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, McGill University, Montreal, Canada and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.  After 13 years at the NIH as a Physician-Scientist, he joined the University of Melbourne in January, 2017 as an Associate Professor at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service (RMH). His current research interests are in the mechanisms of immunity against malaria and immunopathology of intestinal helminths.

His research involving the study of cellular immune responses in the laboratory and in clinical settings contributing to our understanding of immunoregulation in human filarial infections, malaria vaccine immunology and the pathogenesis of human cestode (tape worm) infections. From 2007-2016, his research focused on cysticercosis, specifically, on the role of immunopathology in pathogenesis of neurocysticercosis. In collaboration with Dr Theodore Nash, he developed and exploited animal models of neurocysticercosis to study the regulation of inflammation in the central nervous system. The elucidation of immune pathways to pathology in these models have led to treatment strategies to inhibit inflammation in the central nervous system following treatment of cysticercosis with anthelmintics in humans. He led one of the first studies to demonstrate in vivo immune deviation associated with helminth infections. He co-authored the first publication demonstrating immune evasion by Ebola and Lassa fever viruses in human infections.

After the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 202, he has focused on health care provider infections in Victoria, initiating a study (the DISCOVER-HCP study) of the risk of infections in frontline workers at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and laboratory investigation of innate and cellular immune responses during the acquisition of infections in the study cohort.

Staff

• Dr Louise Randall, Research Associate

Funding

• NIAID Contract  (417739G / UR FAO GR511054) PI: Prof Kanta Subbarao, Clinical CI: A/Prof  Siddhartha Mahanty

Research Publications

1. Subbarao K, Mahanty S. Respiratory Virus Infections: Understanding COVID-19. Immunity. 2020 Jun 16;52(6):905-909. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2020.05.004..PMID: 32497522
2. Bradbury RS, Piedrafita D, Greenhill A, Mahanty S. Will helminth co-infection modulate COVID-19 severity in endemic regions? Nat Rev Immunol. 2020 Jun;20(6):342. doi: 10.1038/s41577-020-0330-5.PMID: 32358579
3. Nash TE, Ware JM, Coyle CM and Mahanty S. Etanercept to control inflammation in the treatment of complicated neurocysticercosis. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2019 Mar;100(3):609-616
4. Huaman, M. C., Martin, L. B., Malkin, E., Narum, D. L., Miller, L. H., Mahanty, S. & Long, C. A. (2008). Ex vivo cytokine and memory T cell responses to the 42-kDa fragment of Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein-1 in vaccinated volunteers. J Immunol 180, 1451-61
5. Mahanty, S., Hutchinson, K., Agarwal, S., McRae, M., Rollin, P. E. & Pulendran, B. (2003). Cutting edge: impairment of dendritic cells and adaptive immunity by Ebola and Lassa viruses. J Immunol 170, 2797-801