CSL fellowships fund immunity research, AI-designed proteins

Australian scientists Dr Carolien van de Sandt and Dr Rhys Grinter have each been awarded CSL Centenary Fellowships, valued at $1.25 million over five years. The fellowships were presented at the 2025 Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences Annual Meeting, held on 29 October in Canberra.

The fellowships are competitively selected, high-value grants available to mid-career Australians who wish to continue a career in medical research in Australia. They are open to medical researchers working on discovery or translational research with a focus on rare or serious diseases, and are overseen by a selection committee comprising three independent members and two CSL representatives.

Dr Carolien van de Sandt’s fellowship supports her groundbreaking work on lifelong immunity. She is tackling the challenge of immune system aging, a key factor in vulnerability to viruses and declining vaccine effectiveness.

Her research explores how, as we age, our T cells become less effective at fighting acute viral infections and less flexible in responding to novel viruses. She will use her $1.25 million CSL Centenary Fellowship to study how children generate robust immunity, how healthy adults maintain optimal immunity, and how immunity becomes impaired in most older people and in certain other population groups. She will also identify targets that could be used to restore our immune systems as we age.

Dr Rhys Grinter is transforming drug development by harnessing Nobel Prize-winning AI technology to design new proteins. His innovative approach streamlines the production of these proteins in the lab, delivering potential drugs many times faster than traditional methods.

Grinter will use his fellowship to target a group of proteins that regulate a host of fundamental cellular processes and play a role in many diseases, including cancer, metabolic dysregulation, heart disease and infertility. He hopes to develop a range of potential drugs to treat these diseases, with a longer-term vision to build and share a protein development capability that will fast-track drugs to patients.

“Dr van de Sandt and Dr Grinter are both conducting fundamental research in their respective fields of immunology and drug discovery,” said Dr Michael Wilson, CSL Senior Vice President, Head of Research.

“With the support of the CSL Centenary Fellowships, their research will hopefully transform how we protect health and accelerate the development of essential new medicines.”

Photos by Stepping Stone Films