Graduate Research Degree Awarded - Kevin Julio Wijanarko

Congratulations to Kevin Julio Wijanarko - Graduate Research Degree Awarded 2nd April 2026

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Supervisors: Prof. Edouard Guy Stanley, Prof. Andrew Elefanty
Advisory Committee: A/Prof. Dan Pellicci, Dr. Elizabeth Ng

Thesis Title: Modelling Lymphoid Development Using Pluripotent Stem Cells

Thesis Summary:

The differentiation of thymocytes is a complex, multistage process that converts a thymic seeding progenitor circulating from the bone marrow to generate functionally primed T-cells with a diverse TCR repertoire. Using multiple in vitro systems, we have demonstrated our ability to use iPSC-derived HSPCs to generate T-cells, shown our capability to leverage in vitro systems to address challenges within the field as well as the potential to use this system to model the thymic development of specific T-cell subsets. We believe that the result of this project may form the foundation for more in vitro T-cell projects in the future, including the possible generation of clinically-translatable protocols.

Date awarded: 2nd April 2026