Governance Board
Prof Michael Kassiou
University of Sydney
Prof Michael Kassiou is the Academic Director of the Centre for Drug Discovery Innovation, a leading multi-disciplinary research centre focusing the invention of critical therapuetics in conjunction with industry and government partners. He is Chief Editor for Frontiers in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
A/Prof Renee Whan
UNSW Sydney
A/Prof Whan is the Executive Director of the Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre (MWAC), the core platform for accessing major scientific instrumentation and infrastructure for the evaluation and analysis of the structure and composition of medical, biological, chemical and physical materials research at UNSW.
A/Prof Anai Gonzalez-Cordero
Children’s Medical Research Institute
A/Prof Gonzalez Cordero is an Al & Val Rosenstrauss Fellow and Group Leader of the Stem Cell Medicine Group at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) with a Senior Lecturer position at The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine and Health. She also heads the Stem Cell & Organoid Facility at CMRI.
A/Prof Shafagh Waters
UNSW Sydney
A/Prof Shafagh Waters is a Scientia Associated Professor at UNSW, Sydney and an expert in stem cell and organoid medicine and an honorary senior scientist at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network. She has developed an Australian national biobank of airway and gut organoids and leads a program on adult-stem-cell biology.
Critical innovation infrastructure in NSW
The NSW Organoid Innovation Centre was established in 2023 through a focused collaboration between leaders at the University of Sydney, the University of NSW and the Children’s Medical Research Institute. A joint proposal for the advancement of the innovation sector in the state was backed by the Emerging Industry Infrastructure Fund at the behest of the Chief Scientist’s Office.
The first of its kind in Australia, the centre is University-led consortium and landmark project for the NSW 20-year R&D Roadmap, to produce more world-leading new technologies, products and services
Operations Team
Dr Anna Renfrew
Centre Manager
Dr Anna Renfrew is the Centre Manger for the NSW Organoid Innovation Centre, and the Centre for Drug Discovery Innovation at the University of Sydney. Anna has a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland and several years postdoctoral experience at the University of Sydney.
Dr Ling Chen
Staff Scientist (University of Sydney)
Dr Ling Chen has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Chongqing University and joint PhD training at Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Sydney. She has extensive experience in developing 3D cultures as tools for drug discovery and diagnostic tests for personalised medicine (asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis and lung cancer).
Dr Alison Ferguson
Staff Scientist (UNSW Sydney)
Dr Alison Ferguson is an expert in organoid models and the Research Manager of the 3D Culture Facility at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney and has extensive experience in patient- and PSC-derived 3D models, having worked in Organoid Facilities in New York City, USA, and Bern, Switzerland.
Dr Milan Fernando
Senior Research Assistant (CMRI)
Dr Milan Fernando has specialised in reprogramming fibroblasts and blood mononuclear cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs). Prior to joining the Stem Cell Medicine group at CMRI, he worked at the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL, where he established an episomal protocol to derive IPSCs from blood samples for disease modelling using retinal organoids.
Our Partners
Professor Jeremy Crook (Chris O’Brien Lifehouse)
Professor Greg Neely (The University of Sydney)
A/Professor Nathan Bartlett (University of Newcastle)
Professor Kris Kilian (University of New South Wales)
Professor Glenda Halliday (University of Sydney)
Professor Lars Ittner (Macquarie University)
Professor Anna deFazio (Westmead Institute for Medical Research)
A/Professor Marina Pajic (The Garvan Institute of Medical Research)
Professor Geraldine O’Neill (Children’s Hospital at Westmead)
Dr Lana McClements (University of Technology Sydney)
Professor Philip Hogg (Centenary Institute)
Professor Gemma Figtree (University of Sydney)
Dr Carmine Gentile (Heart Research Institute)
