Biography

Dr Swarbrick completed her PhD in structural biology in the Forwood lab at CSU and was awarded a prestigious Khoo Postdoctoral Fellowship to study flaviviral protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions at Duke-NUS in Singapore. During this Fellowship she utilised structural biology, virology and biochemistry, to enhance understanding of the molecular interactions within the viral replication complex towards structure-based drug design. Upon returning to Australia in 2019 Dr Swarbrick worked within the von Itzstein lab assisting a range of projects with a particular focus on inhibitor development. Dr Swarbrick has recently returned to CSU to join the Biosecurity team and her research is currently focused on viral protein interactions with a particular interest in understanding the RNA-protein and protein-protein interactions between the viral proteins and also with host proteins. To this end her research utilises a broad range of structural biology techniques, including X-ray crystallography and cryoelectron microscopy (cryoEM), in conjunction with biochemical and virological assays.