INFECTIONS AND OTHER LUNG DISEASES USING MODELS OF HUMAN LUNG TISSUE GROWN FROM STEM CELLS
Dr Rhiannon Werder,
Team Leader
Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia | February 2025
Released on the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science, 11th February 2025 @WomenScienceDay
Dr Rhiannon Werder is a Team Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute leading a multidisciplinary team, combining expertise in stem cell biology and immunology, to develop new therapies for lung diseases. Her research centres around induced pluripotent stem cells to investigate respiratory diseases, spanning acute respiratory infections to chronic lung diseases. Using stem cells, Dr Werder’s team creates models of human lung tissue. With these models, Dr Werder is investigating how human-specific pathogens infect different regions of the lung, the ensuing immune responses, and how the lung repairs itself after infections, especially in people with preexisting lung diseases.
After completing her PhD in Mucosal Immunology at the University of Queensland, Dr Werder was awarded a NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral training at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Boston University. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Werder’s research led to significant findings, including the first discovery of how the lung epithelium responds to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She has also pioneered new gene-editing techniques in iPSC-derived epithelial cells to understand chronic lung disease inception. The impact of her research has been recognised by prestigious awards including the Metcalf Prize for Stem Cell Research by National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6432-4587
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Big data research in maternal, perinatal and renal health epidemiology
Dr Erandi Hewawasam is a Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit within the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at University of New South Wales (UNSW). Her work focuses on maternal and reproductive health, chronic diseases (e.g., kidney disease, endometriosis), and early-life outcomes. She is the Program Manager for the Fertility Medicine Data Asset for Australia (FM-DATA), an MRFF-funded national infrastructure project linking fertility, hospital, Medicare, pharmaceutical, and perinatal datasets covering more than 40 million individuals. She also coordinates the Early Life Course Platform, integrating around 20 New South Wales and Australian federal administrative datasets to support population health research.
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Cellular mechanisms of traumatic brain injury & concussion
Professor Melinda Fitzgerald is Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research at Curtin University, John Curtin Distinguished Professor and CEO of Connectivity Traumatic Brain Injury Australia.
She has published over 135 papers; recent highlights include Lancet Neurology, J Neuroscience, Nature Nano, ACS Nano, Biomaterials. Currently held grants/Projects total $10.1 million; CIA for $5.2 million of these; $18.5 million total research and equipment funding, $9.9 million as CIA; continuous category 1 grant funding as CIA since 2009.
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Identification & characterisation of molecular drivers of therapeutic resistance
Professor Pieter Eichhorn is an internationally experienced cancer biologist and research leader whose career has been defined by high-impact contributions at the interface of functional genomics, translational oncology, and research infrastructure strategy.
He completed his PhD at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, contributing to the cloning of the gene associated with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, before undertaking postdoctoral training at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the laboratory of René Bernards. There, he performed pioneering functional genetic screens that identified key regulators of oncogenesis and therapy resistance, including critical roles for the PI3K signalling pathway in resistance to targeted breast cancer therapies.
