Stem Cell Stars Seminar with Elizabeth Ng & Andrew Elefanty

Talk Title: "TBA"

When: 15 June 2026 | 15:00 - 16:00 + mingle

Where: Segerfalksalen, BMC A10

Chair: Professor Johan Flygare

Following the lecture, take the opportunity to mingle and connect with colleagues and fellow researchers over refreshments at our post-seminar gathering. This is a wonderful opportunity to expand your professional network and share ideas in a relaxed setting. 

All are welcome, and no registration is required!

Are you a postdoc or student at the Lund Stem Cell Center? Register to join the Meet the Expert Lunch with Elizabeth Ng & Andrew Elefanty (15 June from 12:00 - 13:00): Stem Cell Stars: Meet the Expert Lunch with Elizabeth Ng & Andrew Elefanty – Fill out form

About the Speakers:

Elizabeth Ng

Team Leader, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Blood Development

Principal Investigator, Novo Nordisk Fondation Center for Stem Cell Medicine

Elizabeth Ng is an Associate Professor and group leader in the Blood Development Laboratory at MCRI. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne and received her PhD from Monash University. Elizabeth’s research uses induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to investigate haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) formation during human development and to translate that to the in vitro differentiation of iPSCs to blood lineages. A major focus of her work is the generation of transplantable haematopoietic stem cells (iHSCs) from human iPSCs for tissue repair and regeneration, disease modeling and the testing of pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic products. She has devised and patented protocols for haematopoietic differentiation together with a differentiation medium that supports the efficient production of large numbers of blood cells. APEL medium has been licensed and commercialised by STEMCELL Technologies.

Together with long term collaborators Prof Andrew Elefanty and Prof Ed Stanley, her work showed that expression of the HOXA genes during differentiation identified haematopoietic cells with a transcriptional profile similar to blood cells seen in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region of the human embryo. In 2024 she published the first systematic method for generating transplantable HSCs from human iPSCs (iHSCs) which can be clinically translated to provide a source of personalised CD34+ iHSCs. She aims to understand the mechanisms that underlie iHSC maturation and to develop in vitro bone marrow-like 'niches' to sustain them. 

Andrew Elefanty

Honorary Professor, University of Melbourne, Department of Paediatrics

Group Leader, Blood Development Laboratory, Murdoch Children's Research Institute

Professor Andrew Elefanty's research focuses on the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to understand and model blood diseases in vitro and for transplantation. Together with the laboratories of Professor Ed Stanley (Immune Development group) and Dr Elizabeth Ng (Blood Development group) at MCRI, Prof Elefanty has made important contributions to the generation of genetically modified human stem cell lines in which lineage-specific fluorescent reporters allow monitoring of differentiation.

After training as a physician, Professor Elefanty completed a PhD in leukaemogenesis at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research supervised by Professor Suzanne Cory. He subsequently worked on globin gene regulation with Professor Frank Grosveld at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London before returning to the Hall Institute to pursue interests in developmental haematopoiesis and the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells.

He moved to Monash University in 2002 to initiate studies with human embryonic stem cells. In 2013, his laboratory relocated to the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. In collaboration with Dr Elizabeth Ng and Prof Ed Stanley, he has focused on haematopoietic differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells.

• More about the Blood Development Laboratory