Melissa Little

Melissa Little AC FAA FAHMS
Born	(1963-12-05) 5 December 1963 (age 61) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Alma mater	Queensland Institute of Medical Research (PhD 1990) University of Queensland (BSc 1984)
Known for	Developing the world's first kidney in a dish
Scientific career
Fields	Nephrology Stem Cell Organoids
Institutions	University of Copenhagen, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Doctoral advisor	Peter Smith

Melissa Helen Little is an Australian scientist and academic who has served as director of Cell Biology at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute since 2019.^[1] She is also a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, and Program Leader of Stem Cells Australia.^[2] In January 2022, she became CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine reNEW, an international stem cell research center based at University of Copenhagen, and a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Australia, and Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands.^[3]

She is internationally recognized both for her work on the systems biology of kidney development and also for her pioneering studies into potential regenerative therapies in the kidney.^[4][5] In 2015, Professor Melissa Little and her team at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute produced the world’s first kidney in a dish.^[6] Known today as kidney organoids, this research has become a foundation of ongoing work to find a regenerative solution for kidney disease.

Early life and education

Melissa Little was born in Brisbane, Australia on 5 December 1963, the middle daughter of three girls. Her father, Ian Little, was a soils chemist with the CSIRO Cunningham laboratories. She graduated from Kenmore State High School in 1980. She completed her BSc at the University of Queensland with 1st Class Honours in Physiology in 1984. Her PhD studies were performed in the laboratory of Professor Peter Smith at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research enrolled through Biochemistry at the University of Queensland (conferred 1990). An alumna of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, Melissa worked for more than 20 years at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where her research focused on the molecular basis of kidney development, renal disease and repair. In 2004 she graduated from the Australian Institute of Company Directors.^{[citation needed]}

Research on kidney development, disease and regeneration

Little started her research career studying Wilm's Tumour, a childhood kidney cancer. She was awarded a Royal Society Endeavour Fellowship to move to the Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh to undertake postdoctoral training with Nicholas Hastie. Here she worked on the gene WT1, the gene that is mutated in a subset of Wilm's tumour patients.

She returned to Australia to continue to work on WT1, but concentrating on its essential role in the normal development of the urogenital system.^[7] Her work focuses on the molecular aspects of kidney development, with applications to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.

Little and her team have developed an approach to recapitulate nephrogenesis, the formation of nephrons, in a dish. By knowing where the different kidney cells come from and how they develop she has developed a system to regenerate them from pluripotent stem cells. Using embryonic stem cells, or induced pluripotent stem cells from a patient, her group has described a cocktail of growth factors that can drive development into kidney cells.

The group were able to develop self organising organoids 7mm long over 18 days.^[8][9] These small balls of cells have differentiated most of the cells that form the kidneys, including collecting ducts, podocytes, vasculature cells, nephrons and loops of Henle, and are closely related transcriptionallly to first and second trimester developing kidneys. Further research into the organoids by Prof Little's Laboratory has demonstrated robust transcriptional reproducibility of the model^[10] and utilised induced pluripotent stem cells generated from patients to study their kidney disease.^[11][12]

Contributions to Australian Science policy

In the late 1990s, Little was a member of the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research, chaired by Peter Wills.^[13] This review^[14] proposed a Virtuous Cycle between research, government and the commercial sector . As a result of these recommendations, the budget of the National Health and Medical Research Council was doubled over the next 10 years. She went on to serve on the Implementation Committee of that review and served under Robin Batterham, Chief Scientist, to identify strategic priorities across Australian science. A member of the NHMRC Research Committee for 6 years, she was also a member of the most recent review of health and medical research, chaired by Simon McKeon, which led to the establishment of the Medical Research Future Fund^[15] and the Biomedical Translation Fund.^[16]

Professional associations

Little is the 2021-2022 President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research ^[17] and Program Leader of Stem Cells Australia,^[18] an organisation that aims to "Bring together Australia's premier life scientists to tackle the big questions in stem cell science". She is also a guest editor with the scientific journal Development.^[19] She is the serving theme director of Cell Biology^[20] at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and directs the MCRI Stem Cell Medicine Strategic Priority area. She is also the President of the Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research and a Board Member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Awards and honours^[21]

• 2023, Companion of the Order of Australia^[22]
• 2021, Homer W. Smith Award, American Society of Nephrology^[23]
• 2020, Julian Wells Medal, Lorne GENOME Conference^[24]
• 2019, Alfred Newton Richards Award, World Congress of Nephrology^[5]
• 2019, Honorary doctorate, University of Leiden, The Netherlands^[4]
• 2017, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
• 2016, Eureka Prize for Scientific Research^[25]
• 2015, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences^[26]
• 2015, Boerhaave Professorship, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
• 2013, Women in Technology Biotechnology and Outstanding Biotechnology Award Finalist
• 2013, NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship
• 2006, Eisenhower Fellowship
• 2005, GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence
• 2004, NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship
• 2004, Named in The Bulletin Smart 100
• 2004, Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal in Medical Sciences
• 2002, NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship
• 1997, Sylvia and Charles Viertel Senior Research Fellowship

References

1. "Professor Melissa Little | Murdoch Children's Research Institute". www.mcri.edu.au. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
2. "Pursuit University of Melbourne".
3. "New international research center to drive future stem cell-derived medicines". 17 December 2021./
4. "Leiden Honorary Doctorates for Melissa Little and Robbert Dijkgraaf". Leiden University. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
5. Braybrook, Helen (16 April 2019). "Prof. Melissa Little receives international award for achievements in kidney research". School of Biomedical Sciences. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
6. "News". www.stemcellsaustralia.edu.au. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
7. Vicente, Catarina (15 March 2016). "An interview with Little". Development. 143 (6): 907–909. doi:10.1242/dev.135897. ISSN 0950-1991. PMID 26980790.
8. Takasato, Minoru; Little, Melissa H. (15 December 2016). "A strategy for generating kidney organoids: Recapitulating the development in human pluripotent stem cells". Developmental Biology. The Development of Stem Cell-derived Organoids. 420 (2): 210–220. doi:10.1016/j.ydbio.2016.08.024. PMC 6186756. PMID 27565022.
9. Takasato, Minoru; Er, Pei X.; Chiu, Han S.; Maier, Barbara; Baillie, Gregory J.; Ferguson, Charles; Parton, Robert G.; Wolvetang, Ernst J.; Roost, Matthias S. (22 October 2015). "Kidney organoids from human iPS cells contain multiple lineages and model human nephrogenesis". Nature. 526 (7574): 564–568. Bibcode:2015Natur.526..564T. doi:10.1038/nature15695. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 26444236. S2CID 4443766.
10. Phipson, Belinda; Er, Pei X; Combes, Alexander N; Forbes, Thomas A; Howden, Sara E; Zappia, Luke; et al. (January 2019). "Evaluation of variability in human kidney organoids". Nature Methods. 16 (1): 79–87. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0253-2. ISSN 1548-7105. PMC 6634992. PMID 30573816.
11. Forbes, Thomas A.; Howden, Sara E.; Lawlor, Kynan; Phipson, Belinda; Maksimovic, Jovana; Hale, Lorna; Wilson, Sean; Quinlan, Catherine; Ho, Gladys (3 May 2018). "Patient-iPSC-Derived Kidney Organoids Show Functional Validation of a Ciliopathic Renal Phenotype and Reveal Underlying Pathogenetic Mechanisms". American Journal of Human Genetics. 102 (5): 816–831. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2018.03.014. ISSN 0002-9297. PMC 5986969. PMID 29706353.
12. Hale, Lorna J.; Howden, Sara E.; Phipson, Belinda; Lonsdale, Andrew; Er, Pei X.; Ghobrial, Irene; Hosawi, Salman; Wilson, Sean; Lawlor, Kynan T. (4 December 2018). "3D organoid-derived human glomeruli for personalised podocyte disease modelling and drug screening". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 5167. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9.5167H. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-07594-z. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6279764. PMID 30514835.
13. "Peter Wills AC – RESEARCH AUSTRALIA". RESEARCH AUSTRALIA. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
14. Health and Medical Research Strategic Review (Australia). Implementation Committee; Wills, Peter (2000). "Enabling the virtuous cycle" : Implementation Committee report / Health and Medical Research Strategic Review. [Canberra: Department of Health and Aged Care].
15. "Further information on the Medical Research Future Fund". www.health.gov.au. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
16. Commission, Australian Trade. "A$250 million Biomedical Translation Fund to bridg". www.austrade.gov.au. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
17. "Melissa H. Little Assumes New Role as President of the ISSCR". www.isscr.org. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
18. "Welcome to Stem Cells Australia". www.stemcellsaustralia.edu.au. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
19. Vicente, Catarina (15 March 2016). "An interview with Melissa Little". Development. 143 (6): 907–909. doi:10.1242/dev.135897. ISSN 0950-1991. PMID 26980790.
20. "Cell Biology | Murdoch Children's Research Institute". www.mcri.edu.au. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
21. "Professor Melissa Little | Murdoch Children's Research Institute". www.mcri.edu.au. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
22. "Australia Day 2023 Honours: Full list". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 January 2023. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
23. "2021 Award Recipients". American Society of Nephrology. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
24. "Honour for outstanding contribution to understanding genes controlling kidney". School of Biomedical Sciences. 18 February 2020. Archived from the original on 7 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
25. Dean, Tim. "The 2016 Eureka Prizes showcase the best in Australian science". The Conversation. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
26. "Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences – October 2015" (PDF). Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences. Retrieved 12 October 2018.