Dr. Asare is a pharmacist and respiratory research scientist. Since completing his PhD in 2022, he has actively engaged in research and embarked on a full-time postdoctoral research career within the Respiratory Department at the University of Adelaide. He recently obtained almost 1 million grant funding as CIA from MRFF. His research focuses on identifying therapeutic targets that contribute to inflammation and impaired clearance of bacterial infections associated with respiratory disorders.

Dr Habtamu Derseh completed his PhD studies at The University of Melbourne in 2021. He is currently based at Federation University Australia as a postdoc in the lab of Dr Rob Bischof. His research focuses on identifying and testing novel therapeutic targets for chronic respiratory diseases using translational sheep models.

Hao Chen is a final-year PhD candidate specialising in spatial transcriptomics for respiratory diseases, especially COPD. His work focuses on using advanced spatial gene expression technologies to study lung diseases, revealing critical insights into COPD progression and the role of immune cells in lung pathology.

Maddison Knight is a Research Assistant at CMRI, where science meets translatability. Specializing in bioengineering viral vectors and applying CRISPR gene-editing technologies, she’s passionate about crafting the future of gene therapy. Maddison is driven by one goal: to unlock new ways to transform lives through gene therapeutics.

Dr Montgomery is a senior research officer at The Kids Research Institute Australia and an honorary research associate at the University of Western Australia. To date, their career has focused on the effects of respiratory viral infections, using in vitro airway models to elucidate mechanisms driving host responses.

Dr. Senani N.H. Rathnayake is an early career respiratory researcher who has completed her PhD at the University of Technology Sydney in collaboration with the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. She is a molecular biologist with bioinformatics experience and has expertise in CRISPR-based genetics, epigenetics and base editing. Her research primarily focuses on the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD, with particular emphasis on endotype-specific transcriptomic and epigenetic changes. She has recently completed her European Respiratory Society research fellowship at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Dr Alen Faiz is a molecular biologist and geneticist who is leader of the Respiratory Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology (RBMB) Lab. The labs primary focus is to understanding the biology of respiratory systems at the genetic and epigenetic levels, including under conditions of exposure to cigarette smoke and viral infection. Dr Faiz’s research program has made significant contributions to the understanding of the molecular pathways that underpin the development and progression of COPD and asthma through the development of bioinformatics pipelines and advanced cell culture and genetic editing techniques.

Dr Rhiannon Werder is a Group Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, spearheading research utilising stem cell models of the lung to transform the discovery of new therapies for respiratory disease. Dr Werder leads a multidisciplinary team in the Lung Disease lab at MCRI, combining expertise in stem cell biology and immunology, to develop new therapies for lung diseases. Her research focuses on investigating respiratory viral infections and chronic lung diseases using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived models of the lung.