Rate My Professor Monika Tschochner

Dr. Monika Tschochner serves as a Lecturer and Practicum Coordinator in Biomedical Science within the School of Health Sciences at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle campus. She earned a Dipl Biol and her PhD with high distinction from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany in 2007. Her doctoral research examined human immunodeficiency virus pathogenicity, measuring viral replication rates in drug-resistant HIV strains and conducting genotypic and phenotypic drug resistance testing at the accredited National HIV Reference Laboratory in Erlangen. In 2008, she relocated to Australia and began as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Murdoch University, focusing on genetic and immunological factors influencing HIV disease and treatment in collaboration with Associate Professor Mina John. In 2009, her work extended to evaluating immunological response and drug resistance in Hepatitis C virus and HIV/HCV co-infected patients using highly sensitive FLX sequencing technology with Associate Professor Silvana Gaudieri. Since 2010, in the team of Associate Professor David Nolan at the Institute for Immunology & Infectious Diseases, Murdoch University, she has investigated genetic, infectious, and environmental factors contributing to Multiple Sclerosis risk, emphasizing Epstein-Barr virus and biomarkers for early diagnosis and treatment. She teaches Human Anatomy and Physiology, Pathology, Immunology, Reproductive Biology, and Infectious Diseases. Since 2022, she conducts research on learning strategies and attitudes among first-year university students with colleagues from UND Study Success. In 2023, she received an Australian Government Future Health Research and Innovation Fellowship for the STAR project to develop a diagnostic serology test for Acute Rheumatic Fever with Biotomoe Pty Ltd and the Kids Research Institute.

Tschochner has earned multiple honors, including Excellence in Teaching awards from the School of Health Sciences in 2019 and 2020, 2nd Prize for an excellent oral presentation in the post-doctoral category at the 2014 Symposium of West Australian Neuroscience, the 2013 MSJ Investigator award at the Sixth Congress of PACTRIMS, McCusker Charitable Foundation Research Fellowship (2010-2013), principal investigator on a 2014 Small Grant Scheme from Murdoch University, associate investigator on a 2013 Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Foundation grant, and various scholarships. Key publications include "Nanopore sequencing as a novel method of characterising anorexia nervosa risk loci" (BMC Genomics, 2024), "Bridging the Gap: Short Structural Variants in the Genetics of Anorexia Nervosa" (International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2021), "Identifying patient-specific Epstein-Barr Nuclear antigen-1 genetic variation and potential autoreactive targets relevant to multiple sclerosis pathogenesis" (PLoS One, 2016), "Combining HLA-DR and anti-Epstein-Barr antibody profiles to stratify multiple sclerosis risk" (Multiple Sclerosis Journal, 2014), "Contributions of Vitamin D response elements and HLA promoters to multiple sclerosis risk" (Neurology, 2012), and "High-avidity, high-IFNγ-producing CD8 T-cell responses following immune selection during HIV-1 infection" (Immunology & Cell Biology, 2012).