Professor Kumar Visvanathan is a specialist infectious diseases physician and laboratory-based medical researcher whose research focus is on the basic immunology of the innate immune system in a selection of key diseases: hepatitis, cancer, rotavirus, sepsis/infections involving Group A streptococci, mycobacteria and rheumatoid arthritis. He holds appointments as Professor of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne; Infectious Diseases Physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne; and Co-Director, Immunology Research Centre, St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne.