Professor Ed Stanley has a special interest in diseases involving the immune system, such as Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys its own insulin-producing beta cells. His research aims to improve our understanding of the causes behind autoimmunity and to develop new treatments. To do so, Professor Stanley uses human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to create immune cells in the laboratory. Through studying immune cells created from people with Type 1 diabetes, Professor Stanley and his team aim to contribute to the development of a cure for this lifelong condition. He has maintained a long-standing collaboration with Professor Andrew Elefanty and Dr. Elizabeth Ng, together making important contributions to the development of human pluripotent stem cell technology as a powerful experimental platform.

Professor Stanley is deputy director of Melbourne node of the reNEW Centre for Stem Cell Medicine and principal investigator. He is additionally deputy leader of the Stem Cell Biology Theme at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne. He is also the group leader of the Immune Development Laboratory at the MCRI.

Professor Stanley’s laboratory uses human pluripotent stem cells to study human immunity and autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes. In a long-standing collaboration with Professor Elefanty and Dr. Ng (Blood Development Laboratory) at MCRI, Professor Stanley has contributed to the development of underpinning technologies relating to the use of human pluripotent stem cells as an experimental platform, including the genetic modification of human pluripotent stem cell lines, differentiation platforms and cell culture medium formulations.