Laura Vella Australasia Extracellular Vesicles Conference 2017

Laura Vella

Dr Laura Vella is a mid-career researcher with longstanding experience in the study of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their role in disease progression. She completed her PhD on prion disease at The University of Melbourne with Professor Andrew Hill, establishing an on-going research program on the role of extracellular vesicles in neurodegeneration. Her discoveries include the identification of EVs in cerebrospinal fluid and the finding that misfolded proteins can spread to distant cell types via EVs. She has demonstrated the role of EVs in the transfer of drug resistance and recently developed methods to isolate EVs from solid tissue. She has held Post-Doctoral positions in The Department of Pathology at The University of Melbourne as a Viertel Foundation Research Fellow and The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at The Austin Hospital. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health where she holds an American Alzheimer’s Association Fellowship. Here, she is establishing a lab studying the function and biomarker potential of EVs in neurological disorders.