Scientists and projects we've funded

The National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia strategically invests funds to support Australian medical research.

The Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research support promising scientists at the crucial mid-career stage.
Our Matched Funding Program aims to help Australian stem cell researchers to fast-track potential therapies to clinical trials.

Thanks to the generosity of donors, the scientists we've supported are improving our understanding of and developing treatments for conditions including type 1 diabetes, leukaemia and other cancers, heart failure, multiple sclerosis, debilitating bone and cartilage disorders, inherited eye diseases, and more. Read more about the scientists we've supported below.

Growing ‘mini-lungs’ to find treatments to help kids breathe easier | 2024 Metcalf Prize winner: Rhiannon Werder, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Dr Rhiannon Werder is growing ‘mini-lungs in a dish’ that mimic the complexity and function of lungs in living people. The Team Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) has already used stem cell-derived lung cells to create models of human genetic diseases, like cystic fibrosis, and acquired lung diseases and infections, such as the common cold.

How do cells work together to create organs? What happens when cells stop talking? | 2024 Metcalf Prize winner: William Roman, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University

Dr William Roman is growing human muscles on a chip. He’s using them to understand how the skeletal muscle cell, the largest cell in a human body, connects with neurons and tendons to create working muscles. William is using his ‘mini-muscles’ as a model to understand the fundamental principles of intercellular communication, and hopes this work will enable researchers to better mimic organs outside the body.

Making 3D models of how sex development occurs in the womb | Katie Ayers, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Human sex characteristics develop in the womb. About one in 100 babies are born with variations, some of which are linked to health problems, such as increased cancer risk, heart disease, osteoporosis, intellectual disability, or infertility.

A glimmer of hope for patients who can’t swallow | Lincon Stamp & Marlene Hao, The University of Melbourne

Little Lilly Lloyd-Morgan, aged 8, lives with a debilitating condition which stops her swallowing food. But there is hope on the horizon thanks to a potential stem cell therapy being developed by Dr Lincon Stamp and Dr Marlene Hao at the University of Melbourne.

Can stem cells make drugs to stop osteoarthritis? | 2023 Metcalf Prize winner: Jiao Jiao Li, University of Technology Sydney

Dr Jiao Jiao Li plans to use stem cells as biofactories to make drugs to reduce inflammation and encourage repair in painful osteoarthritic joints. Osteoarthritis is a hugely debilitating joint disease with few treatment options. Injecting stem cells to repair damaged joints has shown inconsistent and poor long-term results and the potential for adverse side effects.

Stomach stem cells behaving badly | 2023 Metcalf Prize winner: Dustin Flanagan, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute

People diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer have a less than 10 per cent chance of surviving more than 5 years. Dr Dustin Flanagan wants to boost that survival rate by understanding why some deviant stomach stem cells turn cancerous. This knowledge will help in the development of drugs to bring these misbehaving cells back to normal, healthy function.

Building human skin and blood vessels for wound repair | Geraldine Mitchell, St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research

Melbourne researcher Associate Professor Geraldine Mitchell is growing skin flaps from stem cells to create a new, safer, and less painful way to repair dangerous skin wounds. The Foundation is supporting her research through its Matched Funding Program to prepare for preclinical trials.

Finding treatments for bowel cancer that will work | Helen Abud, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute

Bowel cancer researchers are investigating how to find the right treatment for an individual patient’s cancer faster by growing copies of their tumour in the lab.

Teaspoons of treatment for the tiniest of patients | Atul Malhotra, Monash University

Extremely premature babies’ own stem cells could hold the key to a new treatment for brain injury associated with preterm birth.

Using stem cells to give sight | 2022 Metcalf Prize winner: Anai Gonzalez-Cordero, Children’s Medical Research Institute

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero's research aims to restore sight in people with inherited retinal diseases, by repairing or replacing damaged photoreceptor (light-sensing) cells in the eye. She has already shown that she can grow cultures of healthy photoreceptor cells in a dish in the lab and then use the cells replace the defective cells and restore sight in laboratory models of hereditary blindness. And she has shown that gene therapy can repair diseased human retinal cells grown in the lab as ‘mini-organs’ (or ‘organoids’), providing them with normal light-sensing ability.

Controlling rogue blood stem cells | 2022 Metcalf Prize winner: Ashley Ng, WEHI

Dr Ashley Ng is revealing how blood stem cells are controlled, and how they sometime go rogue, leading to blood cancers. He has discovered how a protein known as ‘ERG’ underpins healthy development of blood cells, and how it also plays a role in Down syndrome-associated leukaemia and a range of other blood cancers. As a researcher at WEHI and a clinician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter Mac, Ashley will use his $55,000 Metcalf Prize to advance his ideas from the laboratory into treatments for blood and blood cancer diseases.

Turning blood cells into muscle cells to test treatments for childhood muscular dystrophy | Dr Peter Houweling, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Melbourne researcher Dr Peter Houweling is growing mini-muscles in the lab, in order to study muscular dystrophy in children, without the need for invasive and painful tissue biopsies.

Growing ‘mini livers’ to restore liver function in kids with rare disease | Dr Sarah Withey, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland

Developmental biologist Dr Sarah Withey is using mini liver 'organoids' made from patients’ stem cells to test a potential treatment for children with a rare, genetic, progressive, life-limiting disease – Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T).

Giving cystic fibrosis patients longer, better lives | Gerard Kaiko, Hunter Medical Research Institute and the University of Newcastle

Dr Gerard Kaiko has developed a new molecule that could help cystic fibrosis patients live longer and with a better quality of life.

Stem cell treatment for healing broken hearts | 2016 Metcalf Prize winner: James Chong, Westmead Institute for Medical Research and The University of Sydney

Cardiologist and researcher Associate Professor James Chong has already used human stem cells to repair the damaged hearts of other large primates — a world first. The achievement and his subsequent work won him a 2016 Metcalf Prize for Stem Cell Research. Now he’s part way through a five-year project that aims to bring the therapy to a clinical trial with patients who have had heart attacks.

More ‘good cells’, safer treatments for leukaemia patients | 2021 Metcalf Prize winner: Siok Tey, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital

Associate Professor Siok Tey is researching treatments that will improve the survival and quality of life for her patients with leukaemia or other blood cancers. “Bone marrow transplantation is an important form of treatment for blood cancers, but it cures only two-thirds of patients,” says Siok, a clinician researcher at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.

Making a virtual human cell | 2021 Metcalf Prize winner: Pengyi Yang, Children's Medical Research Institute and The University of Sydney

Dr Pengyi Yang plans to transform stem cell research. “Today’s stem cell treatments have been the product of trial and error. My virtual stem cell will allow us to understand what’s happening inside a single stem cell that makes it decide what type of cell it will become, be it hair, skin, muscle, nerve, blood or other.”

Gene therapy research focused on the eye’s light receptors | Raymond Wong, Centre for Eye Research Australia

Melbourne university student and long-distance runner Billy Morton, 22, was first diagnosed in his early teens with a rare genetic disease that is causing his eyesight to deteriorate. At the time there was no prospect of a treatment, but progress in gene therapy research is providing new hope.

How embryos and cancer cells grow | 2020 Metcalf Prize winner: Melanie Eckersley-Maslin, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Proteins which control the growth of cells in embryos could teach us how to stop the uncontrolled growth of cells that is the hallmark of cancer, thanks to work by molecular biologist Dr Melanie Eckersley-Maslin. Vital to normal development in early life, these molecules may later play a role in the early stages of cancer or help it spread. If so, we could target them therapeutically and block or slow progression of the disease.

Genes may hold key to leukaemia survival | 2020 Metcalf Prize winner: Steven Lane, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute

Clinical haematologist Associate Professor Steven Lane wants to lift the survival rates of his leukaemia patients. He thinks the key could lie in the genetic fingerprints of the blood cancer stem cells that proliferate the disease. Steven is studying how these cells become resistant to treatment through genetic changes. He will use the knowledge to develop more effective and tailored therapies, both to prevent and treat potentially fatal relapses.

Science that could save your skin | Mark Shackleton, Alfred Hospital and Monash University

Stem cell project targets two diseases: melanoma and vitiligo The Foundation is backing Professor Mark Shackleton’s stem cell research aimed at preventing melanoma and treating vitiligo – two diseases affecting the melanin pigment-producing cells, called melanocytes.

Life-changing bone and cartilage therapies move closer | John Bateman, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

A promising drug for treating a debilitating genetic cartilage disorder is about to enter clinical trials in Australia. While preclinical results to date have been encouraging, exactly how the drug works remains a mystery.

Hijacking viruses to save sight | Tom Edwards, Centre for Eye Research Australia

Dr Tom Edwards wants to use the infectious power of viruses to develop cures for blinding eye disease using gene therapy. More than 16,000 Australians live with an inherited retinal disease (IRD). One type, retinitis pigmentosa, is the leading cause of blindness in the working-age population. Currently, there are no cures or treatments.

How stem cells and calcium affect breast function | 2019 Metcalf Prize winner: Felicity Davis, Mater Research Institute, University of Queensland

Mammary biologist Dr Felicity Davis is investigating how breasts change through life: how they develop during puberty, alter during pregnancy and change back after breastfeeding is complete. A scientist at the University of Queensland’s Mater Research Institute, she is examining the role stem cells play in this remarkable tissue plasticity.

Mass producing mini-hearts | 2019 Metcalf Prize winner: James Hudson, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute

Bioengineer Associate Professor James Hudson has developed a new way to mass-produce human heart tissue from stem cells. The achievement will help researchers study diseases, screen new drugs, and investigate heart development and repair.