About
Dr Wilson Nguyen is a virologist with over 10 years experience working in high biocontainment laboratories (PC3) with chikungunya virus (CHIKV), Japanese Encephalitis virus (JEV) and SARS-CoV-2. He has also worked on various pathogenic zoonotic arboviruses including arthritogenic alphaviruses such as Ross River virus (RRV), Getah virus, Mayaro and O’nyong-nyong; orthoflaviviruses such as Murray Valley Encephalitis virus (MVEV), Zika virus, and orthobunyaviruses such as Trubanaman virus and Akabane virus. His research focuses on establishing mouse models for arboviruses to investigate mechanisms of virus replication and immunopathology for intervention development and testing. Dr Nguyen is also GCP certified to design and conduct human clinical trials.
Research Skills
Dr Wilson Nguyen has expertise in establishing, characterising and exploiting mouse models of arboviruses for preclinical evaluation of new interventions, and examining alphavirus-host interactions. He key techniques include:
• Mouse models of arbovirus infection and disease (both PC2 and PC3)
• Arbovirus histopathology
• Intervention (vaccine/antiviral) development and pre-clinical evaluation
• Molecular/diagnostic assays (e.g. ELISAs, neutralisation assays)
• Cell and organoid viral infection models
• Phylogenetic analyses
Area of Interest
Dr Nguyen’s primary research focus is on arboviruses,
particularly orthoflaviviruses, alphaviruses and orthobunyaviruses.
Professional Associations
Australasian Virology Society
Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology
Funding
QIMRB Seed Grant. Deep sequencing of cerebrospinal fluid for diagnostics of acute encephalitis syndrome. CIA Nguyen. Co-investigators Suhrbier, Rawle, Hajkowicz, Barber. $30,000.
NHMRC Ideas Grant. Virus restriction-guided drug target discovery for chikungunya virus. CIA Rawle. $1,041,471. 2025-2027. CIG Nguyen.
Queensland Immunology Research Centre Seed Grant. Development of pan-alphavirus antiviral antibody therapy. Co-CIA Rawle. $25,000. 2025.
Queensland Immunology Research Centre Seed Grant. Defining the immunopathology of Oropouche virus (OROV) in neuropathological models of neuroinvasion and vertical transmission. $25,000. Co-CIA Nguyen.
Queensland Immunology Research Centre Seed Grant. Evaluating immune responses of ISVac technology against JEV and emerging genotypes. $25,000. Co-CIA Bishop