Kidney Regeneration
Kidney Regeneration
Research Group Lead: Professor Melissa Little | melissa.little@mcri.edu.au | +61 3 9936 6206
Research Overview:
Our vision is to develop new treatments for inherited and chronic kidney disease. Using human stem cells to recreate kidney tissue, we hope to model kidney disease, find new therapies, and eventually develop replacement organs.
The kidney is a complex and essential organ required for maintaining fluid balance, blood volume, and electrolyte stability in the body.
The kidneys are essential organs that maintain fluid balance, blood volume, and electrolyte balance. In humans, all these functions are achieved by the approximately 1,000,000 individual nephrons present in each adult kidney. Remarkably, all of these nephrons are formed before birth, hence any disease no new nephrons can form.
In our research group, we have used our understanding of how the nephrons form during normal kidney development to recreate a model of the human kidney using pluripotent stem cells. These stem cell-derived mini-kidneys can be made using cells from patients with kidney disease.
They can also be generated using gene-edited stem cells engineered to recreate a disease state or a readout of function. Using stem cell-derived models of inherited kidney disease, we aim to screen for novel treatments. We also aim to engineer human kidney tissue to provide a source of renal replacement other than dialysis and organ transplantation.
Staff:
- Prof Melissa Little, Research Group Leader, Chief Scientist (MCRI)
- Dr Jessica Vanslanbrouck, Team Leader / Senior Research Fellow
- Dr Aude Dorison, Team Leader / Senior Research Fellow
- Dr Sara Howden, Scientific Lead, iPSC Derivation & Gene Editing Facility
- Dr Kynan Lawlor, Senior Research Officer
- Dr Allara Zylberberg, Research Officer
- Emma Scully, Bioinformatician
- Pei Xuan Er, Laboratory Manager
- Hannah Baric, Research Assistant
- Rhianna De Poi, Research Assistant
- Rachel Lam, Research Assistant
- Mian Xie, Research Assistant
- Sophia Mah, Research Assistant
- Ker Sin Tan, Research Assistant
- Melissa Ritchie, Research Assistant
- Linda Cox, Executive Assistant to Prof Melissa Little
Collaborators:
- Novo Nordisk Foundation
- Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
- University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
Funding:
- Novo Nordisk Foundation
- Medical Research Future Fund Stem Cell Therapies Mission
- Medical Research Future Fund Genomic Health Futures Mission
- National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia
- Department of Jobs Precincts and Regions, Victorian State Government
- National Institutes of Health, USA