Our team strives to make meaningful discoveries in fundamental neuroscience that contribute to improving the lives of people living with conditions that affect the nervous stem. Our current interests fall under three broad categories:

1. Identifying mechanisms that regulate the cell production dynamics of neuroglia in development, aging and in response to Central Nervous System injury.
2. Discovering new therapeutic targets that enhance CNS repair responses relevant to Multiple Sclerosis and Motor Neuron Disease.
3. Using human induced pluripotent stem cells to engineer complex 3D Central Nervous System tissue, that can be used to model human development and disease processes.

Dr Gonsalvez completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2013, after which he took on a role of Senior Tutor in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience. In 2014, he joined the Neurotrophin and Myelin Lab in Melbourne Brain Centre, and in 2016, was awarded prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) Early Career Fellowship. In 2020, Dr Gonsalvez established an independent laboratory at Monash, and commenced an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Fellowship Award (DECRA). He is now Head of the Neuroglia in Development and Disease Laboratory in the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash. In addition, Dr Gonsalvez is Deputy Director of the Centre for Human Anatomy Education, and Director of the Glasgow Scholarship program. As a passionate anatomy educator, he plays a major role pre-clinical anatomy education for medical students.

Key Lab techniques / areas of specialty:

• Advanced microscopy and image analysis: TEM, Confocal, Spinning Disk, Live Cell.
• Molecular Biology (nanofiber in vitro myelin assays)
• Design Based Stereology
• iPSC models of Disease
• Mathematical modelling of growth dynamics
• Human Neuroanatomy