Position title: Team leader, Tropical and Emerging Infectious Diseases Menzies School of Health Research
Professor and Head of Infectious Diseases Royal Darwin Hospital

Qualifications: MBBS FRACP FAFPHM DTM&H
 

Biography:
On moving to Darwin 21 years ago Prof Currie was initially Head of the Menzies Clinical Division and now leads the Tropical and Emerging Infectious Diseases Team within the Global and Tropical Health Division.  Concurrently Professor Currie is also a Senior Staff Specialist Physician and Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at Royal Darwin Hospital and since 2000 Professor in Medicine at the Northern Territory Clinical School, Flinders University, Honorary Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Queensland and Adjunct Professorial Fellow, Charles Darwin University.

Prof Currie’s passion is in coordinating links between clinicians, public health colleagues and other service providers, laboratory scientists and community.

The research Prof Currie has been involved in has targeted improving prevention and treatment of specific illnesses usually through a better understanding of the underlying disease processes. Research projects have involved epidemiology, clinical observations and basic laboratory work, with the aim of producing best evidence guidelines and support for education and disease prevention initiatives.

Prof Currie was Head of the Biomedical Program of the former Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health and an initial Program Leader of the Biomedical Program of the subsequent CRC for Aboriginal Health.  Collaborations across central and northern Australia and with clinical and scientific colleagues elsewhere in Australia and overseas have resulted in 455 peer-reviewed publications. This is very much a reflection on the quality of the many colleagues who have committed to working in Aboriginal and tropical health.

Prof Currie has peer reviewed grants for the NHMRC since the 1990s and has peer reviewed for 45 journals, including Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and a range of PLoS and BMC open access journals. 

Prof Currie has supervised 15 successfully completed PhDs and 7 Masters by Research students. 

Current Projects:

• Diversity and virulence determinants among 1000 clinical and environmental isolates of Burkholderia pseudomallei
• False positives in the diagnosis of sexually transmitted Chlamydia trachomatis infection in children
• A randomised controlled trial of alternative treatments to intramuscular penicillin for impetigo in Aboriginal children
• Burkholderia: international collaborative development of novel diagnostics; with Northern Arizona University.
• The melioidosis agent Burkholderia pseudomallei in the anthropogenic environment of Northern Australia.
• Combination antibiotic treatment for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
• Beating scabies and strongyloides in Galiwin’ku.

Funding bodies 

• Northern Territory Research & Innovation Board 
• ARC
• NHMRC
• US National Institutes of Health
• The Australian Burkholderia Consortium
• Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet & US Department of Homeland Security

Partnerships and Collaborations:

• Member Writing Group, Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic, from 1989.
• Member Australian National Arbovirus and Malaria Advisory Committee, from 2001.
• Member WHO Western Pacific Region Regional Clinical Network on Emerging Infectious Diseases, from 2010.
• Member Infectious Diseases Editorial Working Group, Remote Primary Health Care Manuals from 2011.
• Member Royal Darwin Hospital Drugs and Therapeutics Committee, Infection Control Committee and Medical Advisory Committee.
• Section Head (Bacterial Infections), Faculty of 1000 Medicine, from 2004.
• Council Member Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, from 2008.
• Council Member Australasian College of Tropical Medicine, from 2011.
• Editorial Board from 2005 and Associate Editor from 2008, BMC Infectious Diseases.
• Associate Editor PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, from 2008.

Current Research Project Collaborations

• Imperial College London, UK
• Wellcome Trust & Mahidol University, Thailand
• Khon Kaen University, Thailand
• Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Malaysia
• Northern Arizona University & Translational Genomics Research Institute, Arizona USA
• Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico USA
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California USA
• Pasteur Institute, France and Madagascar
• James Cook University, Griffith University, University of Queensland & Queensland Institute of Medical Research
• Wildlife Management International
• The Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport

Professional Memberships and Awards:
Memberships
Fellow Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
Fellow Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine.
Fellow Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Fellow Australasian College of Tropical Medicine.
Member International Society on Toxinology.
Member American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Member Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases.
Member Medical Association for Prevention of War

Awards
Welcome Travelling Fellowship, Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Dept of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, UK, March - September 1998.
Royal Australasian College of Physicians Eric Susman Prize and Medal for the best contribution to the knowledge of any branch of internal medicine in Australia for 2001.
Ashdown Oration and Medal, Australasian College of Tropical Medicine, July 2002.
Northern Territory Research & Innovation Awards, 2005 – “Tropical Knowledge Research Award”.
Northern Territory Research & Innovation Awards, 2005 –“Chief Minister’s Research and Innovation Award”.
Chiropsella bart - the Gove box jellyfish.  Named December 2006.
Australian of the Year Northern Territory finalist 2006 and 2007.
Northern Territory nomination for CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science, 2007.
Burns-Alpers Award for clinical teaching of Flinders University medical students, 2007.
The Menzies School of Health Research Medallion 2009.
Ashdown Oration and Medal, 6th World Melioidosis Congress, December 2010.

Areas of expertise and interests:
Tropical diseases & emerging infections & parasitology
Melioidosis
Skin pathogens; scabies, streptococci & staphylococci
Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease
Antibiotic guidelines & antibiotic resistance
Clinical toxinology; snakebite & marine envenomation
Standard treatment guidelines

Publications:
455 Publications in peer-reviewed medical journals.
32 Book chapters.

Currie BJ, Ward L, Cheng AC. The epidemiology and clinical spectrum of melioidosis: 540 cases from the 20 year Darwin prospective study. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 2010;4:e900.

Currie BJ, McCarthy JS. Permethrin and ivermectin for scabies. N Engl J Med 2010;362:717-722.

Currie BJ, Haslem A, Pearson T, Hornstra H, Leadem B, Mayo M, Gal D, Ward L, Godoy D, Spratt BG, Keim P. Identification of melioidosis outbreak by multilocus variable number tandem repeat analysis.  Emerg Infect Dis 2009;15:169-174.

Currie BJ.  Treatment of snakebite in Australia: the current evidence base and questions requiring collaborative multicentre prospective studies.  Toxicon 2006;48:941-956.

Currie BJ.  Group A streptococcal infections of the skin; molecular advances but limited therapeutic progress.  Current Opin Infect Dis 2006;19:132-138.

Currie BJ.  Snakebite in tropical Australia:  a prospective study in the “Top End” of the Northern Territory.  Med J Aust 2004;181:693-697.

Currie BJ, Harumal P, McKinnon M, Walton SF.  First documentation of in vivo and in vitro ivermectin resistance in Sarcoptes scabiei.  Clin Infect Dis 2004;39:e8-12.

Currie BJ, Mayo M, Anstey NM, Donohoe P, Haase A, Kemp DJ. A cluster of melioidosis cases from an endemic region is clonal and is linked to the water supply using molecular typing of Burkholderia pseudomallei isolates.  Am J Trop Med Hyg 2001;65:177-179.