Rate My Professor Andrew Highton

Dr. Andrew Highton is a Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Health Sciences Division, at the University of Otago. Originally from Dunedin, where he attended Kaikorai Valley College, Highton earned a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours, majoring in infection and immunity, and a PhD from the University of Otago. His doctoral work from 2011 to 2015, supervised by Dr. Roslyn Kemp, centered on memory CD8 T cells. He developed a novel mouse model of colorectal cancer to evaluate vaccine formulations, such as chitosan hydrogel, for generating protective cytotoxic T cell responses against tumors. During this period, he garnered major awards including the Eli Lilly Award for best trainee oral presentation at the New Zealand Society for Immunology in 2014, first-equal poster prize at the Australasian Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics Development Meeting in 2014, highly commended poster at the Otago Medical School Postgraduate Research Forum in 2014, Otago Medical Research Society Prize at the Division of Health Sciences Annual Research Forum in 2012, and the Health Sciences Divisional Research Forum Poster Prize in 2012. In 2014, he secured the prestigious Nuffield Medical Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Nuffield Dominion Trust, valued at NZ$83,700 annually for at least two years, to conduct research at Oxford University under Professor Paul Klenerman on virus-specific memory T cells in chronic infections such as HIV and hepatitis C. Additional honors included travel scholarships from the Webster Centre for Infectious Diseases, New Zealand Society for Immunology, Gut Health Network, and others.