Dr Stanisic is an immunoparasitologist with 20 years research experience in malaria immunology and vaccine development. Her research career is focused on understanding the human immune response to the malaria parasite and developing an effective vaccine to prevent the significant morbidity and death associated with malaria infection. Her research experience spans the spectrum from pre-clinical vaccine development through to early phase clinical trials in malaria-naïve volunteers. This includes extensive experience in pre-clinical models of malaria, in vitro culture of malaria parasites, evaluation of parasite and vaccine-specific immunity (in pre-clinical and clinical models), clinical-grade vaccine manufacture and clinical trial co-ordination and execution. She has extensive experience in clinical trial implementation, regulatory considerations for vaccine development and project management. Her current research is focused on the pre-clinical evaluation of whole parasite blood-stage malaria vaccine candidates and their transition into a clinical setting. This involves the use of pre-clinical models of malaria to evaluate the immunogenicity and efficacy of vaccine candidates. To progress these candidates into clinical trials she developed novel reagents (e.g. clinical-grade Plasmodium falciparum cell banks) and methodology which she used to manufacture whole blood-stage vaccine candidates for evaluation in early phase clinical trials. As lead investigator, she has implemented 7 malaria-focused clinical studies. She is also applying the vaccine platforms developed for the malaria vaccine candidates to other parasites of medical and veterinary importance e.g. Babesia.