Melissa Little | |
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Born | |
Nationality | Australian |
Alma mater |
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Known for | Developing the world's first kidney in a dish |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Nephrology Stem Cell Organoids |
Institutions | University of Copenhagen, Murdoch Children's Research Institute |
Doctoral advisor | Peter Smith |
Professor Melissa Little AC FAA FAHMS is an Australian scientist and academic, currently Theme Director of Cell Biology, heading up the Kidney Regeneration laboratory at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. [1] She is also a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, and Program Leader of Stem Cells Australia. [2] In January 2022, she became CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine reNEW, an international stem cell research center based at University of Copenhagen, and a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Australia, and Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands. [3]
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. [4] [5] In 2015, Professor Melissa Little and her team at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute produced the world’s first kidney in a dish. [6] Known today as kidney organoids, this research has become a foundation of ongoing work to find a regenerative solution for kidney disease.
Melissa Little was born in Brisbane, Australia on 5 December 1963, the middle daughter of three girls. Her father, Ian Little, was a soils chemist with the CSIRO Cunningham laboratories. She graduated from Kenmore State High School in 1980. She completed her BSc at the University of Queensland with 1st Class Honours in Physiology in 1984. Her PhD studies were performed in the laboratory of Professor Peter Smith at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research enrolled through Biochemistry at the University of Queensland (conferred 1990). An alumnus of The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, Melissa worked for more than 20 years at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where her research focused on the molecular basis of kidney development, renal disease and repair. In 2004 she graduated from the Australian Institute of Company Directors.[ citation needed ]
Little started her research career studying Wilm's Tumour, a childhood kidney cancer. She was awarded a Royal Society Endeavour Fellowship to move to the Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh to undertake postdoctoral training with Nicholas Hastie. Here she worked on the gene WT1, the gene that is mutated in a subset of Wilm's tumour patients.
She returned to Australia to continue to work on WT1, but concentrating on its essential role in the normal development of the urogenital system. [7] Her work focuses on the molecular aspects of kidney development, with applications to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.
Little and her team have developed an approach to recapitulate nephrogenesis, the formation of nephrons, in a dish. By knowing where the different kidney cells come from and how they develop she has developed a system to regenerate them from pluripotent stem cells. Using embryonic stem cells, or induced pluripotent stem cells from a patient, her group has described a cocktail of growth factors that can drive development into kidney cells.
The group were able to develop self organising organoids 7mm long over 18 days. [8] [9] These small balls of cells have differentiated most of the cells that form the kidneys, including collecting ducts, podocytes, vasculature cells, nephrons and loops of Henle, and are closely related transcriptionallly to first and second trimester developing kidneys. Further research into the organoids by Prof Little's Laboratory has demonstrated robust transcriptional reproducibility of the model [10] and utilised induced pluripotent stem cells generated from patients to study their kidney disease. [11] [12]
In the late 1990s, Little was a member of the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research, chaired by Peter Wills. [13] This review [14] proposed a Virtuous Cycle between research, government and the commercial sector . As a result of these recommendations, the budget of the National Health and Medical Research Council was doubled over the next 10 years. She went on to serve on the Implementation Committee of that review and served under Robin Batterham, Chief Scientist, to identify strategic priorities across Australian science. A member of the NHMRC Research Committee for 6 years, she was also a member of the most recent review of health and medical research, chaired by Simon McKeon, which led to the establishment of the Medical Research Future Fund [15] and the Biomedical Translation Fund. [16]
Little is the 2021-2022 President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research [17] and Program Leader of Stem Cells Australia, [18] an organisation that aims to "Bring together Australia's premier life scientists to tackle the big questions in stem cell science". She is also a guest editor with the scientific journal Development. [19] She is the serving theme director of Cell Biology [20] at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and directs the MCRI Stem Cell Medicine Strategic Priority area. She is also the President of the Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research and a Board Member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
An organoid is a miniaturized and simplified version of an organ produced in vitro in three dimensions that shows realistic micro-anatomy. They are derived from one or a few cells from a tissue, embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells, which can self-organize in three-dimensional culture owing to their self-renewal and differentiation capacities. The technique for growing organoids has rapidly improved since the early 2010s, and it was named by The Scientist as one of the biggest scientific advancements of 2013. Organoids are used by scientists to study disease and treatments in a laboratory.
The Australian Stem Cell Centre is an Australian medical research and development centre which focuses on regenerative medicine through the use of stem cells. Founded in 2003, the Centre is the National Biotechnology Centre of Excellence and has received over $100 million in funding in recent years. It is Australia's premier stem cell research organisation.
STEMCELL Technologies Inc., often abbreviated to STEMCELL, is a Canadian biotechnology company that develops, manufactures, and sells scientific instruments, reagents, and consumables. The company also markets education, custom manufacturing, and contract assay services for academic and industrial scientists.
IFT140, Intraflagellar transport 140 homolog, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the IFT140 gene. The gene product forms a core component of IFT-A complex which is indipensible for retrograde intraflagellar transport within the primary cilium.
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