Holly Melland is a postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Molecular & Translational Drug Discovery Laboratory at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre. She is a cellular and molecular neurobiologist with expertise in live cell and confocal microscopy, primary neuronal culture, biochemistry, and molecular biology. Holly currently researches novel neurotherapeutic targets involved in autophagy and cognition as part of the Servier Drug Discovery Program.

She recently completed her PhD in Dr Sarah Gordon’s Presynaptic Physiology Laboratory at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and the University of Melbourne. Her doctoral research focussed on the proteins and processes that coordinate and sustain neurotransmitter release and how their dysfunction leads to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. She determined the genetic, molecular, and cellular underpinnings of several rare monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders and epilepsies, in particular, SYT1-associated neurodevelopmental disorder.