Professor Steven Tong appointed Head of Adaptive Platform Trials at Melbourne Centre for Clinical Trials

Congratulations to Professor Steven Tong on his appointment as Head of Adaptive Platform Trials at the Melbourne Centre for Clinical Trials.

An infectious diseases physician with the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service and a research lead at the Doherty Institute Professor Tong brings extensive expertise in clinically driven research. His work spans skin pathogens, hospital infections, Indigenous health, viral hepatitis and influenza, with a focus on applying cutting-edge science to improve patient outcomes.

Professor Tong trained in infectious diseases in Melbourne (2004–2005) and Darwin (2006) and then earned his PhD from the Menzies School of Health Research/Charles Darwin University in 2010. He then completed post-doctoral training at Duke University in North Carolina (2011) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute at Cambridge in the United Kingdom (2012).

Professor Tong is the principal investigator for the Staphylococcus aureus Network Adaptive Platform (SNAP) trial and the Australasian COVID-19 Trial (ASCOT). SNAP, a global study across 130 hospital sites in more than 10 countries, has enrolled over 5,000 participants to address critical gaps in treatment for S. aureus bloodstream infections. His achievements include discovering two new Staphylococcus species, identifying a novel hepatitis B genotype in Indigenous Australians, and leading clinical trials for impetigo, COVID and MRSA infections.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Tong to this leadership role and look forward to the impact his expertise will bring to advancing adaptive platform trials.