Dr Deborah Burnett
Debbie completed her PhD in 2019 with Professor Chris Goodnow and established her first independent group at the Garvan Institute before launching her UNSW laboratory in 2024. Within 6 years of her PhD, she has become a recognised leader in the field, mapping how antibody evolution responds to complex infectious threats, particularly those linked to autoimmune disease. Her research shows how self‑reactive B cells, traditionally thought to be solely pathogenic, can sometimes be safely recruited into beneficial immune responses. This insight is helping reshape global thinking around vaccine design for infections associated with autoimmune complications.
Her work has informed public health recommendations issued by national and international bodies and been published in top-tier journals including Science and Immunity. She has secured over $13 million in competitive funding, and her leadership and translational impact have been recognised with the 2023 Early Career Researcher of the Year (Biological Sciences) NSW Premier’s Prize for Science and Engineering, the 2023 L’Oréal–UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship, a 2025 Young Tall Poppy Award and selection as an International Union of Immunological Societies “Rising Star” (2025).
Debbie’s Snow Fellowship Program
Debbie’s Snow Fellowship will accelerate her vision to de‑risk vaccine development for infections that can trigger autoimmune disease—conditions that disproportionately affect disadvantaged and First Nations communities. Diseases such as rheumatic heart disease and hepatitis C vasculitis are global health priorities for the World Health Organization and disproportionally affect indigenous Australians, but progress has been hampered by fears that vaccines intended to prevent infection may inadvertently provoke autoimmunity.
Her program aims to overcome this by developing a triage pipeline that predicts autoimmune risk at an early stage in vaccine development, accelerating timelines, reducing costs and improving safety and efficacy. Her research will identify mechanisms that distinguish protective from pathogenic B‑cell responses by identifying antigens that drive infection‑associated autoimmunity and defining biomarkers of harmful self‑reactivity.
Debbie is particularly excited to join the 2025 Snow Fellowship cohort. With strong immunology representation already within the Snow Medical ecosystem, Debbie’s program will further strengthen the cohort’s collective expertise and help advance Australia’s leadership in immune‑driven disease research.