Dr Niamh Moriarty
BSc(Hons), PhD
Senior Research Fellow
Location
Parkville Campus
30 Royal Parade
Parkville Victoria 3052
Research group
Stem Cells and Neural Development Group
Biography
Dr Niamh Moriarty is a senior research officer working in the Stem Cells and Neural Development Group at The Florey.
Dr Moriarty completed her PhD in 2018 at Galway University in Ireland where her research focused on the development of trophic factor enriched collagen hydrogels to improve fetal-derived dopaminergic cell replacement therapies. Dr Moriarty joined The Florey in 2019, where she continued her research into cell replacement strategies for neural repair using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC). Her research goals are to develop a greater understanding of what drives survival and plasticity following neural transplantation to ultimately develop the next generation of cell therapies that provide enhanced functional recovery.
Dr Moriarty is working on a number of research themes, including:
- improving the understanding of human neural development
- advancing stem cell transplantation for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease
- bioengineering scaffolds to support neural transplantation for brain repair
- modelling Parkinson’s disease using patient-derived stem cell.
Career highlights
Current roles
- Board member of the Asia-Pacific Association for Neural Transplantation and Repair
- Committee member of the Professional Development and Junior Investigators Subcommittee of the Australian Society for Stem Cell Research (ASSCR)
- Committee member of the Melbourne Emerging Leaders in Biomedical Research Society
Previous roles
- Member of the Florey Postdoctoral Association
- ERC representative for the International Network of European CNS Transplantation and Restoration (NECTAR).
Other highlights
- Several of Dr. Moriarty’s publications appear in field-leading journals including Cell Stem Cell, Nature Communications, the Journal of Neuroscience, and the Journal of Functional biomaterials.
