Tania Sorrell
Tania Sorrell is an Australian infectious disease doctor and scientist. Born on 6 March 1947, she is a Professor and Director of the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity at the University of Sydney. She also chairs the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Research Translation Faculty Steering Group on New and Emerging Health Threats.
She studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, where she earned her degrees and did early work on anticonvulsant drugs in immunosuppression and cancer. She moved to the United States on a Fulbright-Hays award and later worked as a postdoctoral fellow.
Sorrell’s research covers invasive fungal infections, drug discovery, and turning research into practical use. She joined the University of Sydney in 1985 and has focused much of her career on the fungus Cryptococcus, studying how Cryptococcus neoformans causes disease to find new treatments and faster diagnostic tests.
She helped design a rapid PCR platform that can screen DNA and RNA from up to 70 microorganisms at once, speeding up clinical diagnoses. She is also interested in the emergence of drug-resistant microorganisms.
Sorrell helped establish the Marie Bashir Institute. She was president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases in 1989 and serves as a senior advisor for the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2014 and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:19 (CET).