Dr Maliha Alikhan is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Inflammatory Diseases at Monash University. Maliha completed her PhD at Monash University in 2012 under the supervision of Professor Sharon Ricardo, investigating the role of reparative macrophages in acute kidney injury (AKI). Maliha joined the Autoimmune Kidney Disease and Vasculitis Research Group under the supervision of Professor Richard Kitching in 2013. Her main research area is investigating the immune responses in experimental models of autoimmune anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated glomerulonephritis, particularly focusing on adaptive immunity in acute and chronic myeloperoxidase (MPO) autoimmunity in ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis. She has established critical techniques to examine MPO antigen specific responses, T cell mediated injury and CD8 T cell memory phenotype and function using multi-colour flow cytometry analysis and gene sequencing to better understand the pathogenesis of T cell mediated kidney disease and identify potential therapeutics.

Maliha also works in developing mouse models of AKI that examine the AKI to chronic kidney disease progression in ischemia-reperfusion injury and cisplatin nephrotoxicity. Her studies investigate how the innate immune system drives injury particularly focusing on the role of the inflammasome and Toll-like receptors.