Congratutions to Dr Eric Chow on his many recent awards!!

Dr Eric Chow with his VC award
for ECR research excellence

Only three years post-PhD, Dr Eric Chow has launched an exceptional upward career trajectory in epidemiology and the control of sexually transmitted diseases. He has received a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Research Fellowship and two recent project grants (one from the NHMRC and the other from industry).

Most recently, Eric was awarded:

• 2017 Vice-Chancellor's award for Excellence in Research by an Early Career Researcher
• 2017 Australasian Sexual Health Alliance (ASHA) award*
• 2017 AMREP EMCR Public Health Early Career Research Best Paper award**
• 2017 Victorian Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the year award
• 2017 Early Career Researcher Fellows Publication Prize
• 2017 Dean's award for Excellence in Research (Early Career)

*The ASHA Mid-Career Interdisciplinary Achiever Award recognises an outstanding mid-career interdisciplinary achiever in an area of sexual health. Eric is currently leading several national research projects, e.g. three studies examining the effectiveness of using mouthwash to prevent oropharyngeal gonorrhoea in gay men and sex workers, and two studies examining the impact of HPV vaccination programme in boys. Recently, he has discovered that using a commercial antibacterial mouthwash can inhibit the growth of gonorrhoea in the throat. This study has been published in Sexually Transmitted Infection in December 2016, it has been downloaded more than 7000 times within the first four months and received several media coverage. Two of his publications have been identified as “the most influential publication” in the journal of Sexually Transmitted Infection and Sexual Health in 2017.ustry).

**Dr Eric Chow, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Alfred Health and Central Clinical School, Monash University
Paper Title: Quadrivalent vaccine-targeted human papillomavirus genotypes in heterosexual men after the Australian female human papillomavirus vaccination programme: a retrospective observational study
Journal: Lancet Infectious Diseases
Lay summary: This is the first study to demonstrate falls in vaccine-preventable human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes (6/11/16/18) in largely unvaccinated heterosexual men as a result of herd protection from vaccinated women from the national HPV vaccination programme in Australia.
The study looked over 11 years; 3 years before and 8 years after the female HPV vaccination programme. For the first time, I showed the prevalence of the four vaccine-preventable HPV genotypes (6/11/16/18) dramatically reduced from 20% in 2004/05 to 3% in 2014/15 among Australian-born men, suggesting these men received herd protection from their female partners. Interestingly, we found a decline in HPV 16/18 but not in HPV 6/11 among overseas travellers who were from countries (e.g. UK) with a bivalent vaccine (16/18 only) programme, suggests these men receive benefits from herd protection for 16/18 from their vaccinated female partners in their own countries.
Link to publication: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27282422