Associate Professor Peter White
- Position: Associate Professor
- Room: 263A, Biological Sciences
- Phone: (+61 2) 9385 3780
- Fax: (+61 2) 9385 1483
- email: p.white@unsw.edu.au
For more details about the PW Lab see http://www.emi.unsw.edu.au/~whitelab/
Peter is the Postgraduate and Honours Coordinator for the School of biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences
Professional Experience
- Associate Professor 2008 - present
- Senior Lecturer, UNSW, 2003-2007
- Hepatitis Group Leader, Virology Division, Prince of Wales Hospital 1998-2002
- NHMRC funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Macquarie University, 1997-98
- Royal Society Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Macquarie University, 1996-97
Research Contribution
Infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) contributes one of the most important health care burdens both in Australia and worldwide with more than 200 million people infected. In the field of hepatitis C virus, A/Prof White has contributed several landmark publications in relation to replication, molecular tools, epidemiology, reinfection and the development of novel polymerase inhibitors.
Peter White's group identified the recombination breakpoint of norovirus, a finding that attracted significant media attention in 2005. Further work in 2007 by the group led to the characterisation all 20 recombinant NoV types. The group also identified the 2004 and 2006 pandemic strains of norovirus, each associated with over 200,000 cases of gastroenteritis in Australia alone.
In the field of antibiotic resistance research Peter White has a well established international reputation, having established the significance of integrons in the role of antibiotic resistance in clinical settings. The paper describing that work has been cited over 170 times. Current work has focused on multiple antibiotic resistant clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii which have become a major problem in intensive care units of hospitals world-wide. Other work includes the characterisation of mechanisms for the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes.
Committees and other Positions
- Postgraduate and Honours Coordinator
- 2003-present Honorary Virology Consultant, Prince of Wales Hospital
- Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology (Vice President 2006-present)
- Member of the UNSW Biosafety Committee
Conferences
- Australian Centre For HIV and Hepatitis Virology (ACH2), Scientific Convenor, National meeting, Terrigal Jun, 2009.
- Australian Virology Group, Organising Committee, Lorne Dec 2009
- Australian Society of Microbiology (ASM), Division 2 Chair (Virology), Sydney 2010 and member of the National Scientific Advisor Committee (NSAC), Jul 2010
Active Research Projects
Publications
- Tu, E. T-V, R. A. Bull, G. E. Greening, J. Hewitt, M. J. Lyon, J. A. Marshall, C. J. McIver, W. D. Rawlinson and P. A. White (2008)
- Epidemics of acute gastroenteritis in 2006 were associated with the spread of norovirus GII.4 variants, 2006a and 2006b.
- Clinical Infectious Disease. 46:413-420
- Nordmann, P., Poirel, L., Mak, J.K., White, P.A., McIver, C.J. and Taylor, P. (2008)
- Multidrug-resistant Salmonella strains expressing emerging antibiotic resistance determinants.
- Clinical Infectious Diseases. 46: 324-324.
- Tu, E.T.V., Bull, R.A., Kim, M.J., McIver, C.J., Heron, L., Rawlinson, W.D. and White, P.A. (2008)
- Norovirus excretion in an aged-care setting.
- Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 46: 2119-2121.
- Bull, R. A., M. M. Tanaka and P. A. White (2007)
- Norovirus recombination
- Journal of General Virology. 88:3347-3359
- Micallef J. M., Macdonald, V., Jauncey, M., Amin, J., Rawlinson, W. D., van Beek, I., Kaldor, J. M., White, P. A. & Dore, G. J. (2007)
- High incidence of hepatitis C virus reinfection within a cohort of injecting drug users.
- Journal of Viral Hepatitis 14(6):413-8
- Nguyen, O.K., Dore, G.J., Kaldor, J.M., Hellard, M.E., on behalf of the ATAHC Protocol Steering Committee (Baker, D., Crofts, N., Day, C., Dolan, K., Dore, G., Farrell, G., Ffrench, R., Haber, P., Hellard, M., Kaldor, J., Lloyd, A., Madden, A., Marks, P., Matthews, G., McCaughan, G., Petoumenos, K., Rawlinson, W., Sievert, W., Van Beek, I., White, P.) (2007)
- Recruitment and follow-up of injecting drug users in the setting of early hepatitis C treatment: Insights from the ATAHC study
- The International Journal of Drug Policy. 18: 447-451
- Bull, R. A., E. T. V. Tu, C. J. McIver, W. D. Rawlinson and P. A. White (2006)
- Emergence of a new norovirus GII.4 variant associated with global outbreaks of gastroenteritis
- Journal of Clinical Microbiology 44:327-333
- Jones, L. A., L. E. Clancy, W. D. Rawlinson and P. A. White (2006)
- High affinity aptamers to subtype 3a HCV polymerase display genotypic specificity
- Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 50:3019-2027
- Bull, R. A., G. S. Hansman, L. E. Clancy, M. M. Tanaka, W. D. Rawlinson and P. A. White (2005)
- Norovirus Recombination in ORF1/ORF2 Overlap
- Emerging Infectious Diseases 11:1079-1085