Background

Dr Wines holds a leadership position within the Immune Therapies Group of Professor Mark Hogarth researching the biology of antibodies and Fc receptors, which are of fundamental importance to new therapeutic approaches to treating cancer, infection, inflammation, autoimmunity and allergy.

As a chief investigator with Professor Hogarth over a near 20-year period, his work has attracted nearly continuous funding from the peak national body, the National Health and Medical Research Council. The research outputs of the group have been diverse and have emphasized translational outcomes, as shown by a strong patent history, CRC-Biomarker membership and support by medical biotechnology industry partners.

Dr Wines is a named inventor on three patents covering antibody Fc-mediated effector function. His work has explored antibody scaffolds with enhanced effector functions for the treatment of infectious disease and cancer or contrariwise antibodies with enhanced interaction with a key inhibitory ‘checkpoint’ receptor for the treatment of inflammation and allergy.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Wines has played a key role in the development of anti-viral Fc fusion protein biologicals. He has engineered effector functions of the fusion proteins which enhance their antiviral activities.

Dr Wines has engineered both effective inhibitors of immune complex-mediated activation and assays for evaluating the effector potential of antibody responses in vaccination and infection. He has further developed these for measuring the activating capacity of antibody responses to vaccines, in infection, allergy and autoimmunity.

Dr Wines undertook a biochemical and mutational analysis of FcαRI and highlighted the role of FcαRI and IgA in immunity in studies that first defined the molecular basis of this receptor:ligand interaction.

In collaboration with John Fraser of the University of Auckland, Dr Wines defined the role of SSL (Staphylococcal Superantigen-like toxin) proteins in S. aureus evasion of antibody and complement mediated immunity. Dr Wines led a team that solved the structure of SSL7 in complex with human IgA-Fc and identified the binding sites of multiple SSL proteins which contributed to collaborative structural studies.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
• BSc (Hons), University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Appointments

• 2006-present: Senior Research Officer, Burnet Institute, Victoria, Australia
• 2006-present: Senior Fellow, Department of Immunology, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
• 2003-present: Senior Fellow, Department of Pathology, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• 1994-2006: Senior Research Officer, Austin Research Institute, A&RMC, Victoria, Australia
• 1992-1994: Senior Associate, Victoria University, Victoria, Australia
• 1992- Oct 1994: Postdoctoral Fellow, Oncology Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• 1990-1992: Research Officer, Centre for Molecular Biology and Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, Australia