IDENTIFYING AND TREATING AUTOIMMUNE NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS
With
Associate Professor Sudarshini (Darshi) Ramanathan,
Neurologist & Head of Translational Neuroimmunology Group
Faculty of Medicine and Health
University of Sydney, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Sydney, Australia | April 2026
Associate Professor Sudarshini Ramanathan is a neurologist and clinician scientist whose work focuses on autoimmune neurological disorders. Her research has helped identify new neurological syndromes due to antibody-mediated demyelination and encephalitis, and improve diagnostic tools and treatment guidelines for patients with autoimmune diseases affecting the brain, spinal cord, muscles and nerves.
Associate Professor Ramanathan’s research program aims to improve our understanding of underlying disease pathogenesis with a focus towards ‘precision medicine’ in neuroimmunology – both with diagnosis and therapeutics. Her research focuses on defining the clinical, radiological, and immunophenotypic profiles of specific pathogenic autoantibodies; understanding what triggers autoimmunity and disruption of immune tolerance; and the cellular and humoural mechanisms of action of autoantibodies and how this might be translated into refining novel therapeutic approaches.
Her work thus far has resulted in the enhanced recognition of novel treatable neurological conditions, important biological insights into the pathophysiology of these disorders, and the development of diagnostic criteria and therapeutic approaches to improve outcomes in vulnerable patients who otherwise risk chronic disability.
Associate Professor Ramanathan heads the Translational Neuroimmunology Group at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney; and also runs a neuroimmunology clinic at Concord Hospital. She supervises and mentors a research team of PhD and Masters candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and clinician researchers. Her research has been recognised by the Leonard Cox Award for Excellence in Neuroscience research and the NSW Premier’s Prize Award for Early Career Researchers (Biological Sciences) in 2022.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0294-9768
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Metabolic phenotyping, lipidomics & bioinformatics in dementia
Dr Luke Whiley is a dementia researcher whose work focuses on understanding how the body’s metabolism, particularly the biology of fats known as lipids, influences our health throughout ageing.
His research explores how the body responds to illness, lifestyle, and environmental stress at a chemical level, and how these responses shape longterm disease risk. Using advanced blood-based measurement technologies, Dr Whiley studies thousands of small molecules at once to build a snapshot of a person’s metabolic health. By combining these measurements with data science approaches, his work identifies biological pathways that become disrupted in disease, providing insight into why some people are more vulnerable to conditions such as dementia.
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Leukaemia microenvironment & high risk childhood leukaemia
Associate Professor Laurence Cheung is now an Associate Professor at the Curtin Medical School as well as Curtin Medical Research Institute, and a Co-head of the Leukaemia Translational Research Laboratory at The Kids.
He has attracted over $8.7 million in research funding, including 16 awards as CIA (over $6.1 million). Assoc Prof Cheung was named the 2019 Cancer Council of WA Early Career Cancer Researcher of the Year and received the STEM Early Career Research Award at Curtin University in 2019.
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Exercise therapy for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease
Dr Shelley Keating is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Exercise Physiology and Accredited Exercise Physiologist from the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland. With a strong grounding in exercise metabolism and body composition, Dr Keating’s research centres on the utility of exercise as a therapy for obesity and related cardiometabolic conditions, notably metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
