STEM CELLS USED FOR AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION
Dr Jenna Hall
Senior Research Associate
University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia | January 2025
Dr. Jenna Hall is a passionate and accomplished biologist with expertise in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) culture, disease modelling, and high-throughput automated systems. She recently earned her PhD from the University of Melbourne, where her research focused on using iPSC-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells to study age-related macular degeneration. Dr Hall’s technical skillset spans manual and automated cell reprogramming and differentiation, quantitative microscopy-based phenotyping, and large scale -omics analysis.
Dr Hall was awarded a highly competitive and sought after Australian Research Council Centre for Personalised Therapeutics and Technologies (ARC CPTT) scholarship which, in addition to funding her PhD, included an industry internship with a leading life sciences consultancy firm. Her internship with Biointelect allowed her to contribute to strategic projects addressing key challenges in Australia’s biotechnology ecosystem. Her white papers on the country’s vaccine and drug value chain, as well as anti-obesity medication, demonstrated her ability to combine scientific knowledge with commercial insights to influence policy and improve pandemic preparedness.
Dr Hall has over four years of industry experience, including her time at the New York Stem Cell Foundation, where she collaborated with engineers and data scientists to develop scalable workflows for cell reprogramming, downstream differentiation, and automated maintenance. For her next career step, Dr Hall is hoping to secure a role in a fertility research lab.
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Mental health research on first responders in regional, rural and remote Australia
Dr Rikki Jones has been awarded to date a total of over $430,000 in research funding. She is currently leading four large national research teams focusing on rural health and sustainable rural health workforce (include mental health of first responders, sexual violence in rural Australia, virtual simulated nursing placements, and nursing students experience with online learning, connection and transitioning to practice).
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ROCK-induced early-onset bowel cancer progression
Professor Michael Samuel is a cell biologist whose research interest is in understanding how cancer mechanobiology influences the tumour microenvironment, thereby promoting tumour progression. He is Professor of Matrix Biology at the University of South Australia, Adelaide and heads the Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology and the Cancer Mechanotherapies Laboratory at the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research.
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World-first clinical trial improves patient outcomes for kidney transplants (2023)
A world-first clinical trial conducted at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) and at hospitals across Australia and New Zealand has identified the best fluid treatment to reduce the risk of patients requiring dialysis after a kidney transplant.
Around one in three people who receive a kidney transplant suffer delayed graft function, which means the transplant doesn’t work immediately and they require dialysis.
The lead-author of the study, was Royal Adelaide Hospital Nephrologist and University of Adelaide researcher, Dr Michael Collins.
