Ana Nunez-Nescolarde

Ana Nunez-Nescolarde

Research Scientist | Monash University

Awarded a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in Spain, Ana moved to Norway in 2018 to undertake a Master in Molecular Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She generated brain organoids and developed a novel method to perform genome editing on stem cells, protocol now endorsed by NTNU. Currently, Ana is a last year PhD student at Monash University supervised by Dr. Alexander N Combes and Professor David Nikolic-Paterson. Her research is focused on human kidney organoids as models of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease. She is a recipient of 10x Genomics fellowship, which she used to profile maladaptive repair signatures of kidney organoids at a cellular level. Ana is also a recipient of the Medical Advances Without Animal Trust (MAWA) grant for the innovation of her experiments. Her current work has successfully generated kidney organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells, urine samples and nephrectomies, which holds great potential for drug discovery and personalised medicine. Ana’s publications include papers in the American Journal of Pathology, Biointerphases and Free Radical Biology and Medicine. She has received the Bioartifical Kidney Award from the American society of Nephrology in 2022 and also placed as a finalist in the Basic Science Award for ANZSN, among others. Ana has co-supervised postgraduate students, both Master and Honours, and currently holds a position as Teaching Associate for Monash University. She is part of the communication committee and the early career researcher committee for the Australian Society of Stem Cell Research.