Dr Priyanka Hastak

Priyanka is a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Kirby Institute. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology before pursuing a Master's at the Australian National University in Canberra.

In early 2021, Priyanka completed her PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she focused on genomic surveillance of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens in patients with blood stream infections. Her project, funded by the AusGem (Australian Centre for Genomic Epidemiology and Microbiology), involved long-read sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to uncover resistance and virulence patterns in emerging and globally disseminated multi-drug resistant E. coli clones.

Since joining the Kirby Institute's Immunovirology and Pathogenesis program in 2021, Priyanka's research has centered on understanding the T cell response in sepsis patients and vaccinated cancer patients.