Congratulations Dr Lex Leong

29 April 2022

SA Pathology congratulates Dr Lex Leong on obtaining his Fellowship of the Faculty of Science (FFS) RCPA based on his published works.

Lex completed an Honours degree in Microbiology at Monash University and a PhD in microbial genomics at CSIRO/University of Queensland before working at SAHMRI, where he collaborated with the MID Directorate before joining SA Pathology in 2018. Since then, Lex has been the driving force leading the Directorate’s rapid implementation of microbial genomics for public health investigations and antibiotic resistance detection.

The most prominent work by Lex and others in the Pathogen Genomics Group (including Dr Ivan Bastian, Dr Chuan Lim, Dr Caitlin Selway and Jacob May) has been the ongoing genotyping of SARS-CoV-2 in South Australia during the pandemic. This work has confirmed outbreaks from medi-hotels & helped guide the use of antiviral therapies. The Group are sequencing multiple other pathogens, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Neisseria meningitidis and various enteric pathogens to inform individual patient care and public health investigations.

Congratulations again Lex, we look forward to your future publications!