Biography
Dr Natasha de Alwis is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Therapeutics Discovery & Vascular Function group at the University of Melbourne. Her research focus is in understanding the development of pregnancy complications, particularly preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction, and in developing novel therapeutic strategies to prevent and treat them.
She began her tertiary studies with a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne majoring in Microbiology and Immunology. In her Honours year, she turned to pregnancy research with the Translational Obstetrics Group, studying hypoxia-induced changes in the dysfunctional placenta. Being part of the Therapeutics Discovery and Vascular Function in Pregnancy Group, her PhD research focused on assessing candidate therapeutics for preeclampsia in human placenta and the maternal vasculature, as well as in animal models. Her research features an ex vivo technique called wire myography, by which vessel reactivity can be measured in response to drugs and other small molecule inhibitors.