Member Spotlight

Vivienne Kaiser

CMRI

Vivienne Kaiser completed a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Advanced Studies at the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in 2021. She spent her Honours year working at the Centenary Institute in the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy laboratory, where she focused on improving the efficiency of AAV-mediated gene therapy. After pivoting to a different field and becoming a Research Assistant in a Biochemistry lab focusing on plant membrane protein crystallisation, she discovered that she loved research but that her passion lied in the field of gene and stem cell therapy.

Vivienne is now a 2nd year PhD student in the Stem Cell Medicine Group at the Children's Medical Research Institute working under Associate Professor Anai Gonzalez-Cordero. Her project aims to generate iPSC-derived inner ear and retinal organoids to understand the disease pathophysiology of deaf-blinding Usher1b Syndrome. Alongside this, she is also using these organoids to develop novel AAV-gene therapeutics for this disease.