Dr. Sabrina Sofia Burgener is a Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research Fellow and Deputy Lab Head of the Inflammasome Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) leading the pre-clinical disease models team. In 2019, Dr. Burgener joined the Inflammasome Group as a Senior Research Fellow with back-to-back fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research.
In the Inflammasome lab, her research programme focus is on pre-clinical disease models to study inflammation with a focus on I) how the innate immune system drives disease, II) identifying novel therapeutic targets in these diseases, and III) defining potential trade-offs in preventing inflammation, to harness the development of new diagnostics and anti-inflammatory therapeutics.
Her research is internationally recognised for its contributions, having received several international awards, and is supported by prestigious Fellowships, including the Janggen-Poehn Fellowship (2017), Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2020-2022) and the Novartis Foundation for Medical and Biological Research Fellowship (2022-2023), along with competitive project funding: Research Excellence Award from the UQ Australian Infectious Disease Research Centre (2020) and the MetroSouth Co-funded Collaboration Project (2023). Dr. Burgener is the vice president of the Australian Cell Death Society (ACDS) with more than 350 members, and organiser of the 3rd Japanese and Australian Cell Death Meeting (JAM) in 2023. She is committed to guiding the next generation of rising scientists, focusing on mentoring and providing impactful research projects. Her outstanding leadership capabilities have been awarded with Leading Edge Leadership Scholarship from Women in Leadership Australia, two Commendations for IMB Leadership Impact Award and short-listed as UQ Excellence in PhD supervision.