Dr. Bernd Kalinna is a Principal Research Fellow of Rural and Global Health at the Rural Health Research Institute at Charles Sturt University in Orange, NSW, Australia. His current interests are in vaccine development for parasitic diseases, periodontitis diagnosis, causes and treatment in rural Australia, and characterisation of epigenetic markers for Type 2 diabetes in First Nations people.

Dr. Kalinna completed a Bachelor of Science (Hons.) in Biology (B.Sc., 1985) at Philipps University Marburg. Following the completion of his PhD, Dr. Kalinna worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), Brisbane, Australia (1990-1998). At QIMR he was instrumental in cloning numerous schistosome antigens many of which are to this day considered potential vaccine antigens. He was also one of the first researchers to apply the then newly developing area of DNA vaccines to parasitic helminths.

Following his postdoctoral training at QIMR, Dr. Kalinna was an Associate Professor at the Institute for Parasitology, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany (1998-2005) where he obtain his DSc and then joined the School of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia in 2006. Working in Berlin and Melbourne with co-workers Dr. Kalinna pioneered the use of retroviral vectors for chromosomal integration of transgenes in schistosomes and published the first report on the use of these vectors to deliver silencing constructs into parasitic worms. This work is considered seminal in helminth transgenesis.

Dr. Kalinna is the author or co-author on over 50 international peer-reviewed publications (e.g., Nature Medicine, PloS Pathogens, Journal of Biological Chemistry, The FASEB Journal, International Journal for Parasitology, Trends in Parasitology, Advances in Parasitology), reviews and book chapters on various aspects of helminth infections (e.g. Trends in Parasitology, Advances in Parasitology, Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews, Methods in Microbiology, Biology,).

In 2008 Dr. Kalinna was invited to join one of the top parasitology journals (Experimental Parasitology) and was appointed Editor in Chief. This invitation clearly underlines the international standing in his field of research and also gave him the opportunity to advance the field of Parasitology in general. He held this position from 2009 – 2014.