Alex Loukas is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow at James Cook University (JCU) in Cairns, QLD. He obtained his BSc and PhD from University of Queensland. He conducted postdoctoral work at University of Edinburgh, held as assistant professorship at George Washington University, and led a group at Queensland Institute of Medical Research before moving to JCU Cairns as a professorial tropical research leader in 2010. Loukas’ research interests focus on the molecular basis of host-parasite interactions, and exploiting that knowledge to develop (1) anti-helminth subunit vaccines, and (2) next-generation biologics for treating inflammatory and metabolic diseases using human parasite challenge models and recombinant parasite proteins. His work is currently funded by NHMRC, NIH (US) and various pharmaceutical companies.