Kidney Development, Disease, Repair and Regeneration

Professor Melissa Little is an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne and is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia. An alumnus of The University of Queensland, Australia, she worked for more than 20 years at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where her research has focused on the molecular basis of kidney development, renal disease, and repair. She is internationally recognized both for her work on the systems biology of kidney development and also for her pioneering studies into potential regenerative therapies in the kidney. Her research now focuses on the generation of mini-kidneys from patient stem cells for use in drug screening and disease modelling. Professor Little is a recipient of the GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence (2005), Gottschalk Medal (2004), Eisenhower Fellowship (2006) and a Boorhaave Professorship (2015). From 2007-2008, she served as the Chief Scientific Officer at the Australian Stem Cell Centre and is currently the Vice President of the Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research. Professor Little is also on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society for Nephrology, Kidney International, Development and Developmental Biology. Her appreciation for the wonder of developmental biology also stems from her role as the mother of two beautiful children.