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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Dr Zarina Greenberg
RESEARCH IN BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE
@ SYNCHRON
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA -
Biopsychosocial approaches to obsessive-compulsive, body image and eating disorders
Dr Nicola Acevedo is a Neuroscientist and Research Fellow with extensive expertise in developing novel therapeutics for neurological and psychiatric disorders, contributing to more than ten clinical trials. She specialises in brain stimulation and psychedelic treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions, with a strong commitment to advancing personalised, evidence-based neurobiological therapies for severe psychiatric illness. Her approach integrates biopsychosocial and person-centred principles to improve treatment access and mental health outcomes.
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Infections and other lung diseases using models of human lung tissue grown from stem cells
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.
