Dr Elise Needham is a Team Leader in the Heart Regeneration and Heart Disease group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI). Her research uncovers how genetic variants alter proteins and their signalling pathways to influence disease risk and progression. This work aims to identify disease drivers and prioritise therapeutic targets in conditions ranging from paediatric congenital heart disease to cardiometabolic disease.

Dr Needham completed her PhD in phosphoproteomics at the University of Sydney in 2022. She then trained in genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge as a Schmidt Science Fellow and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellow, developing a systems genetics approach to map functional cell signalling connections. Now supported by the Sarah and Lachlan Murdoch Fellowship and an Australian Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, she is expanding and scaling this approach at MCRI.