Dr Rhiannon Werder is Group Leader of the Lung Disease lab at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, leading research utilising stem cell models of the lung to transform the discovery of new therapies for respiratory disease. She received a PhD in Immunology from the University of Queensland in 2017, uncovering novel antiviral mediators regulating responses to respiratory viral infections. Dr Werder was then awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) CJ Martin Early Career Fellowship and an Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral work at a world-leading stem cell institute (Center for Regenerative Medicine, Boston University).

Dr Werder now leads a multidisciplinary 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. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Werder’s research led to significant findings, including the first discovery of how the lung epithelium responds to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She has also pioneered new gene-editing techniques in iPSC-derived epithelial cells to understand chronic lung disease inception.

Dr Werder is Convenor of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand Cell, Immunology & Molecular Biology of the Lung Special Interest Group.