Beta cells, synthetic biology, optogenetics, Type I diabetes, kinases, proliferation

Dr Christina Gangemi received her undergraduate degree from Monash University (2016) specialising in molecular biology and biochemistry. She became an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Scholar (2016) and completed her Honours thesis (2017) at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI), Monash University. She later joined Professor Harald Janovjak’s group at ARMI (2018) as a research assistant before completing her doctorate degree (2019-2023) where she studied optical approaches to promote pancreatic beta cell regeneration. Key achievements from this work include establishing an automated image analysis approach to quantify islet proliferation assays, designing a modular light-emitting diode shelving system for ex vivo and in vitro illumination of primary islets, generating a new assay to test cyclin-dependent kinase 6 (CDK6) function (a known beta cell proliferation driver), and exploring the effects of photoswitchable pdDronpa domains when engineered into CDK6. During her candidature, she was awarded a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Australia PhD Top-Up Scholarship. In 2023 she started a Postdoctoral Research Associate role in the Janovjak group at Flinders University to continue her research in beta cell biology.