Melissa Little, AC, is CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Stem Cell Medicine (reNEW), Chief Scientist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and leads the Kidney Regeneration Laboratory in Melbourne. She is globally recognized for pioneering kidney organoid technology using human pluripotent stem cells, which is applied in disease modeling, drug screening, and renal replacement therapies.
A past President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and an EMBO member, Professor Little’s contributions are founded on over 30 years of research in kidney development and regenerative medicine. Her work has earned numerous prestigious awards, including the GlaxoSmithKline Award, the Eureka Prize, and the Homer W. Smith Award. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and the Danish Royal Academy of Science and Letters.

Seminar topic: Generating human kidney tissue using pluripotent stem cells