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 Nischal Sahai
RESEARCH IN BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE
@ SYNCHRON
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA -
Public health and research into Ear, Nose and Throat conditions
Associate Professor Paul Paddle is an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon, head and neck surgeon with fellowship training in Laryngology – Voice, airway and Swallowing disorders. Working at Monash Health and Monash Children’s hospital, Paul has extensive experience managing a wide range of paediatric ENT conditions, from neonates to adolescents. He is also an active researcher in paediatric obstructive sleep apnoea and sleep disorders.
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Relationship between mental illness and mental wellbeing
Since 2015, Dr Matthew Iasiello has been working on the development and dissemination of mental wellbeing interventions across the Australian community at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). His PhD research was designed specifically to strengthen the translational work conducted by SAHMRI, and to solve problems that represented gaps in the literature that were arising when delivering mental wellbeing interventions into the community. The impact and relevance of Dr Iasiello’s work has been demonstrated with invited presentations at international academic conferences, and multiple media stories with significant online engagements.
