2024 Rising Star Award Winners
Past Rising Star Award Winners
The Rising Star Award aims to recognise distinguished contributions of two ASSCR members who have demonstrated excellence in research and leadership in the early stages of their careers.
Sponsored by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia (NSCFA).
Dr Holly Voges
Dr Holly Voges is a Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Research Officer in the Heart Regeneration Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She obtained her PhD from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland in 2019, where she used pluripotent stem cell models of the heart to investigate innate regenerative potential and the role of cell-cell interactions in heart maturation.
During her postdoctoral training, she acquired experience in high throughput drug screening and in vitro disease modelling using human pluripotent stem cell-derived organoids. Her research now focuses on bioengineering heart valve tissue for treating and modelling valve disease.
Her work has been recognised by multiple awards and distinctions, including the Shirley E Freeman Award for innovation from the Heart Foundation (2022), publication prizes from the International Society of Heart Research (2023), Stem Cells Australia (2017) and the Zhongmei Chen Young Award for Scientific Excellence from the International Society of Stem Cell Research (2021 and 2024).
Dr Simon Maksour
Dr Simon Maksour is dedicated to understanding early cellular and molecular changes in disease and developing novel therapies for neurodegenerative conditions. He completed his PhD in March 2023 in Professor Mirella Dottori’s lab, modelling Alzheimer’s using neurons, glia, and human stem cell organoids. Currently, he is an Associate Research Fellow in the Neurodevelopment and Neurodegeneration lab under Professor Lezanne Ooi at the University of Wollongong, where he conducts high-throughput drug screening to discover new neuroprotective agents in patient neurons.
Despite being early in his career, Dr Maksour has authored 18 neuroscience publications, 8 as first or co-first author.
His research involves applying stem cells to various neurodegenerative diseases, including Motor Neurone Disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Friedreich’s ataxia, Vanishing White Matter disease, and Huntington’s disease.
He has also successfully led competitive research grants, including the Bruce Warren Molecular Horizons ECR fellowship, enabling him to manage his own project. Simon aims to leverage his skill set and collaborative approach to advance the understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
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