Assoc Prof. Ameneh Khatami
Affiliate. Clinical Deputy Director of Phage Australia
ameneh.khatami@health.nsw.gov.au
Biography
Associate Professor Ameneh Khatami is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the University of Sydney and a paediatric infectious disease specialist at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (SCHN). She has worked and trained in clinical and academic institutes in New Zealand (NZ), Australia, the United Kingdom and New York. She has extensive experience in designing and leading clinical trials and is recognised internationally for her expertise in clinical phage therapy. She is the clinical Deputy Director of Phage Australia and Executive Committee member of Global Clinical Phage Rounds. A/Prof Khatami has established close collaborations internationally with phage therapy researchers, as well as Australian adult and paediatric infectious disease researchers as a Steering Committee member for the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Network and the Australia and NZ Paediatric Infectious Diseases Network. She is the Phage Therapy Content Expert for the SCHN Advanced Therapeutics Steering Committee, and a member of the SCHN Human Research Ethics Scientific Advisory Committee. She also contributes to a regulatory working group chaired by NSW Health, developing a regulatory framework for phage therapy with the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration and Office of the Gene Technology Regulator.
Research interests
A/Prof Khatami’s research focus is on optimising antimicrobial therapies in children with complicated infections, including cystic fibrosis, and the development of novel therapeutic options for difficult-to-treat infections in children. She has led the development of the STAMP (Standardised Treatment And Monitoring Protocol to assess safety and tolerability of phage therapy in adults and children) study: https://anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=382817&isReview=true). This novel process trial has been recruiting patients throughout Australia since April 2022 and represents the primary route of access to phage therapy in Australia and a unique opportunity to generate a large volume of systematic phage therapy data which has not existed anywhere to date. She is now also leading a Phase 2b trial of phage therapy in Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia that will be recruiting in 2026 (SABRE-Phi – Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia treated with phage therapy to improve outcomes); and is an investigator and steering committee member for the BEAT-CF (Bayesian Evidence Adaptive Treatment for people with Cystic Fibrosis) platform trial.
Affiliations
Paediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network – The Children’s Hospital at Westmead; Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Health, The University of Sydney.
