Merja Joensuu

I received my PhD (with distinction) in 2014 from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where I studied membrane trafficking using advanced imaging techniques. In 2015, I relocated to the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia, for postdoctoral training, shifting my research focus from fundamental cell biology towards neuroscience and super-resolution imaging. I was awarded a three-year Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2016 and an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in 2019 to investigate the role of lipid-modifying enzymes in neuronal function. In 2022, I became a UQ Amplify Fellow and established my independent research group at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), UQ.

I now lead a laboratory that combines advanced imaging, cell biology, human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and organoid models, and preclinical disease modelling to understand mechanisms of nervous system health and disease. Our research addresses two interconnected biological questions: i) how lipid metabolism supports neuronal energy metabolism, synaptic function, cognition, learning and memory, and how modulation of neuronal lipid pathways can be harnessed therapeutically in neurological disease; and ii) how genetic and environmental perturbations disrupt cellular homeostasis in rare neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, and how patient-derived iPSC and organoid models can be used to uncover human-specific disease mechanisms and develop and evaluate new therapeutic strategies.

More broadly, we investigate how fundamental cellular processes, including membrane trafficking, lipid metabolism and organelle function, are exploited or disrupted across inherited neurological disorders, neuroparalytic diseases caused by bacterial toxins, and infectious diseases caused by neurotropic and respiratory viruses. By integrating mechanistic discovery with human disease modelling and therapeutic development, our goal is to identify convergent disease mechanisms and translate them into new opportunities for intervention.