SGS: Elly Tanaka - tba.

Elly Tanaka is Scientific Director at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, where her lab studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying limb and spinal cord regeneration in salamanders as a model for understanding why some vertebrates regenerate complex tissues while mammals largely cannot.

Using the highly regenerative axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), as well as additional vertebrate models such as Xenopus laevis and the mouse, her group identifies the stem cells that fuel regeneration and the factors required for it to succeed, and applies these insights toward engineering replacement tissues, with the long‑term goal of generating three-dimensional spinal cord tissue and retinal pigment epithelium from stem cells. She studied biochemistry at Harvard University, holds a PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed postdoctoral research at University College London.