[Music plays and an image appears of the Australian Government Coat of Arms and the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year badge and text appears: Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, Associate Professor Laura Mackay, The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, Celebrating 20 years]

[Image changes to show Associate Professor Laura Mackay walking on a pathway past the Howard Florey Laboratory and then the image changes to show Laura working at a laboratory bench]

Associate Professor Laura Mackay: I’m an Immunologist. I study how immune responses can protect the body against disease.

[Image changes to show Laura’s face as she talks to the camera]

Growing up I absolutely did not want to be a scientist. I wanted to be an artist.

[Images flash through of pedestrians and traffic at a busy road crossing, a view looking up at a building, and Laura walking towards the camera along a street]

I didn’t think it would be so full of discovery and so unexpected.

[Image changes to show a rear view of Laura walking along the street and then the image changes to show Laura riding up a building in a lift]

I actually started to become interested in how the immune system could protect us when I got glandular fever as a teenager.

[Image changes to show Laura’s face as she talks and then the image changes to show Laura walking along a corridor]

It was really intriguing to me to ask, why did I feel sick, and you know, why wasn’t there a cure for this.

[Image changes to show Laura and a colleague entering a laboratory and then the image changes to show Laura looking through a microscope lens]

So, that’s really what got me interested in learning what our body could do to combat the infection.

[Images move through to show tweezers moving a small object in a petri dish, Laura and a colleague in conversation, and then Laura and a colleague working in the lab and talking]

Traditional therapies for cancer involve chemotherapy or radiation whereas we’re now moving into an era of immunotherapy

[Images move through of pink liquid in a beaker, test tubes in a tray, pink liquid being squirted from a pipette into a test tube, and then Laura’s face as she works]

…and this involves harnessing a patient’s own immune system to fight their own cancer.

[Images move through of a reflection of Laura in a window holding up a petri dish, a female colleague looking up at the dish, Laura working on the computer, and then Laura’s face as she talks]

My “Aha” moment came when we were comparing the ability of blood T cells versus tissue T cells to protect against infection and I remember calling my mentor, Frank Harbonie, and saying, “We’ve done it, we’ve stopped the infection”.

[Image changes to show Laura talking to the camera and then images move through of a male looking through eye pieces into a machine, a lab worker looking into a microscope, and Laura talking]

So, these tissue resident T cells we’ve identified, they’re our body’s first line of defence and we found it’s these T cells that do a lot of the heavy lifting and they can protect against infection and also against tumours.

[Image changes to show Laura working in a laboratory with colleagues and the camera zooms in on Laura looking through a microscope and then the camera zooms out to show the laboratory again]

The great thing about this award for my work is that it really puts what we’re doing in the spotlight.

[Image changes to show liquid being squeezed from a pipette]

It makes our research really visible.

[Image changes to show Laura and her colleagues at work on computers and the camera zooms in on Laura and a female colleague]

It’s great for me, my team, my mentors, and my collaborators.

[Image changes to show Laura talking to the camera and the camera zooms in on her face as she talks]

My hope for the future is that our research will have translated into better outcomes and better treatments for patients suffering from a range of diseases such as malaria, influenza and cancer.

[Image changes to show Laura standing in a laboratory and turning to smile at the camera and the camera zooms in on Laura]

[Music plays and an image appears of the Australian Government Coat of Arms and the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year badge and text appears: Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, Associate Professor Laura Mackay, The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, Celebrating 20 years]