Kanta Subbarao

Professor Kanta Subbarao is a virologist and a paediatric infectious disease physician. She has worked on molecular virology and vaccine development for emerging viruses that pose a potential pandemic threat, including influenza viruses, SARS and MERS and SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses. She holds a Canada Excellence Research Chair position on Biology and Control of Zoonotic and Pandemic Respiratory Viruses at Laval University in Quebec and is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne. From 2016-2024 she was the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Australia and before that she was the Chief of the Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of influenza and received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement award from the International Society for Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, American Academy of Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.