Staff profile - Dominic Dwyer

NSW Health Pathology's Professor Dominic Dwyer, is currently stationed in Wuhan, China, undergoing a 14-day quarantine before embarking on a further two-week mission to investigate the origins of COVID-19.

He will then go through another quarantine period upon his return to Sydney. It's a true commitment of time and energy, and he does it all in the name of science and public health.

Late last year, Prof Dwyer was selected by the World Health Organization (WHO), to be part of an international team of physicians, scientists and researchers, chosen for their expertise in animal health and animal viruses, human viral infections and transmission, and epidemiology and public health.

The 15-member team will work with local health officials in Wuhan, to explore the origins of the coronavirus that has now infected 95 million and killed more than two million people worldwide.

Many uncertainties around the virus remain, including when it jumped from animal to human and the subsequent human to human transmission. while Prof Dwyer said they may not necessarily identify the very initial source of the virus, he hopes to learn more about its early movements, before it began its deadly global spread.

Prof Dwyer is a medical virologist and infectious diseases physician at NSW Health Pathology's Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR) at Westmead. He has extensive experience in pandemic responses, even prior to COVID-19. His work in molecular testing for HIV spans three decades and he was also involved in a WHO investigation into the SARS outbreak nearly 20 years ago. 

When he's not consulting with international experts or sharing his insight and experience at virtual health conferences, he is a trusted spokesperson on public health, providing expert advice to help keep our communities safe through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based at ICPMR, he has been working around the clock to help deliver a COVID-19 testing regime that has resulted in one of the highest testing rates in the world per capita.

Since the start of 2020, Prof Dwyer has marshalled an expert team at ICPMR-Westmead, developing scientific breakthroughs in the health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These include diagnosing the first case in NSW, growing live virus from patient samples in the state's high-level biosecurity laboratory at Westmead, helping formulate the SARS-COV-2 diagnostic test used across NSW, and developing whole genome sequencing and serology testing to support the public health response to COVID-19.

Back in Wuhan, Prof Dwyer is keeping busy in quarantine. He participates in daily virtual meetings with members of the WHO team and with Chinese responders to the COVID-19 pandemic, planning the logistics of their impending field work.

This mission is a search for answers. Did the virus really start in Wuhan or did it begin in another city or even another country, only to travel to China where it really took off? Did the virus come from an animal, and if so, which animal? Did healthcare facilities or laboratories have a role to play in its amplification? These are the questions and while we may never identify a 'patient zero', if we are to learn more about how the virus has spread, we will be better placed to respond to future viral outbreaks.

What we do know, is Prof Dominic Dwyer will be there among the world's best, discovering key evidence around the emergence of this novel virus that has devastated a global community.