Curriculum Ala Lew-Tabor BScHons
Dr Ala Lew-Tabor BScHons PhD
Senior Research Fellow
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture & Food Innovation
Team Leader – DAFF Applied Biotechnology Livestock
The University of Queensland
306 Carmody Rd., Blg 80, St. Lucia Qld 4067
Postal: GPO Box 6097, St. Lucia Qld 4072
Tel: +61(7) 3255 4535; Fax: +61(7) 3346 2167;
Mob: 0417737595; Email: a.lewtabor@uq.edu.au
Adjunct Associate Professor
Centre for Comparative Genomics, Murdoch University
South Street, Murdoch WA 6150
Editorial Board Member for International Journal for Parasitology
http://www.researchid.com/rid/A-5286-2010
Associate Professor Ala Lew-Tabor, Biography, April 2013
Dr Ala Lew-Tabor is currently a Senior Research Fellow with the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture & Food Innovation at The University of Queensland and an Adjunct Associate Professor with Murdoch University’s CCG (Centre for Comparative Genomics) in Perth, Australia. Prior to this appointment at UQ, Dr Lew-Tabor was a Research Scientist at Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (currently the Dept. of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, DAFF) since 1992 and continues to lead her research portfolio within QAAFI. Her tertiary education was through the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1984 (Microbiology and Biochemistry), Honours in Microbiology (1986) and a PhD from the Tropical Health Program of the Faculty of Medicine (1995). Her main area of expertise is the application of genomic or sequence data to develop molecular diagnostic and genotyping methods to better identify pathogens, and to study of gene function in relation to disease pathogenicity and vaccine development. She has been able to innovatively apply her skills to develop practical solutions for the management of livestock diseases.
Dr Lew-Tabor has published over 50 scientific publications and further 60 international and national conference presentations. Her molecular skills have been applied to study infectious diseases including human public health bacterial pathogens, bovine retroviruses, bovine venereal and reproductive diseases (vibriosis, trichomoniasis, neosporosis, 3-day sickness), bovine tick fever (babesiosis, anaplasmosis), chicken coccidiosis, and the cattle tick. Her research applications thus span broad disciplines of infectious organisms including viruses, bacteria, protozoa and ecto-parasites.
Current interests also include the leadership of an international and national team to develop a new cattle tick vaccine. This resulted from the success of approximately $3.4m of grant funds from 2005 until 2012 from the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies, the Qld Government’s Smart Future’s Innovation Fund, and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA). The research program incorporated a modern biotechnological approach for the development of a new tick vaccine termed ‘reverse vaccinology’ and includes DAFF scientists and partners from the US Department of Agriculture, Murdoch University’s CCG and EMBRAPA, Brazil. Through MLA support, antigens continue to be under trial evaluation with several candidates demonstrating great protective potential. For the development of this tick research program, Dr Lew-Tabor was awarded the 2008 Queensland Smart State Smart Women Award for Science in the Community/Public Sector. Her team has been recently successful in obtaining Australian Research Council funding to develop a vaccine to combat the Australian paralysis tick, Ixodes holocyclus.
