Mitchell is holding a series of fora on biotechnology, North-South collaborations and genetically modified food.
His visit aims to highlight the current status of Australia’s scientific research, emphasize Australia’s contribution to tropical medicine and agriculture over the past 100 years, highlight the depth and breadth of historical and scientific links between Australia and the Philippines and create and reinforce the awareness and image of the Centenary of Federation among Filipinos.
Mitchell’s research accomplishments are in the fields of immunology, parasitology and tropical diseases. Together with Jaq Miller at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, he made discoveries in the way cells collaborate in antibody production.
His research interests later shifted to the development of new tools for the control of parasitic diseases in humans and animals. In a collaboration that commenced in 1980 with the University of the Philippines-Manila College of Public Health, he worked on the parasitic disease schistosomiasis.