Professor Brendan Murphy is the Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Government and is the principal medical adviser to the Minister and Health. He also holds direct responsibility for Health’s Office of Health Protection and the Health Workforce Division. In addition to the many committees he chairs, co-chairs and participates in, he is the Australian Member on the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Governing Committee and represents Australia at the World Health Assembly.

Charles joined NUAA as Deputy CEO at the start of 2018. Charles career has been dedicated to working for improvements in the health and human rights of drug users, in particular injecting related drug use, as these individuals are often pushed to the margins and many places and people actively disempower their efforts; Charles and NUAA wish to be in those arenas in an effort to make a difference in people’s lives. Previous to NUAA Charles gained experience in Australia as the Programs Manager/Acting EO at Harm Reduction Victoria developing his skills in the Australian harm reduction context. Prior to Melbourne 2016, Charles worked within the New Zealand Needle Exchange Programme at national and regional levels improving the health and well being of people who inject drugs nationwide. Whilst in all roles Charles has championed drug treatment options for PWID and driven the best evidence approach through the intersectionality between policy, research and practice. An example being three national seroprevalence studies examining risk behaviours and blood borne viruses (HIV HBV HCV) prevalence among needle exchange attendees and also research into examining peer based approaches and their effectiveness.

Dr. Gane is Professor of Medicine at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Hepatologist and Deputy Director of the New Zealand Liver Unit at Auckland City Hospital. Dr. Gane trained in hepatology at the Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College School of Medicine, London, where he completed his MD on the pathogenesis of hepatitis C-related liver injury. In 1998, Dr. Gane was appointed as Chief Physician for the first New Zealand Liver Unit at Auckland City Hospital. Since 2000, Prof. Gane has been the Ministry of Health Clinical Advisor for the National Hepatitis B Screening and Follow-up Program. In 2012, he was appointed as Hepatitis C Champion for the Ministry of Health and now chairs the Government HepC Elimination Implementation Committee which is preparing the first New Zealand National HepC Action Plan. Prof. Gane is the principal investigator for many international clinical trials, with particular interest in early phase development of new direct-acting antiviral therapies against chronic HCV and HBV. Prof. Gane has published more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. He is an Associate Editor for Journal of Hepatology. Dr Gane is a member of APASL and AASLD and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 2011, Dr. Gane was awarded Member of the Order of New Zealand for Services to Medicine and in 2017, was the New Zealand Innovator of the Year for his work towards HCV elimination in New Zealand.

Professor Margaret Hellard AM is a Deputy Director at the Burnet Institute, Head of Hepatitis Services in the Infectious Diseases Unit at The Alfred Hospital and an Adjunct Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at Monash University and University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. She was recently awarded an Order of Australia. Margaret’s principal research interests are in preventing the transmission and improving the management of blood borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections, with the ultimate aim to end the AIDS epidemic and eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat. She has considerable experience in undertaking multidisciplinary community based research involving people who inject drugs (PWID), gay and bisexual men (GBM) and other vulnerable populations. Margaret is a member of numerous advisory committees and working groups on viral hepatitis and HIV within Australia and globally, including Co-Chairing the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on HIV and Viral Hepatitis and Chairing the World Innovation Health Summit Viral Hepatitis Forum (20198).. She has over 400 peer reviewed publications and received over $80 million in competitive grants and tenders.