A/Prof Michael Gantier leads the Nucleic Acids and Innate Immunity laboratory in the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Disease at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. The central theme of his research is to define how nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) modulate immune responses. Following his PhD studies on the then emerging RNA interference technology, he joined the laboratory of Prof Bryan Williams in 2006, to define the interaction of RNAs with the innate immune system. This led to the discoveries of structural determinants of RNAs which underlie their capacity to activate or inhibit immune responses by Toll Like Receptors, a theme he has developed further in his independent laboratory since 2015. He received the prestigious Milstein Young Investigator award from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society (2010), and Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society Young Investigator award (2014) and an ARC Future Fellowship (2014), among several other international and national awards. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed publications in high-quality journals (inc. Nature, Cell, Nature Biotech, Nucleic Acids Res.), and is an inventor on 7 PCT patents. He currently serves as Associate Editor for the prestigious Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids journal and Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research.