Dr Anna Krasnodembskaya  holds a Reader (Associate Professor)  post at  the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, Queens University of Belfast, UK and leads a group of postdoctoral researchers,  PhD, Masters’ and undergraduate students. Her studies  are  focused on the development of    Mesenchymal Stem Cells- based therapies for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and investigation of the mechanisms mediating MSC effect. Ongoing work is investigating the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of  ARDS and the ability of MSC-derived extracellular vesicles to alleviate it through transfer of healthy mitochondria and miRNAs.

Dr Krasnodembskaya earned her Masters and then Doctorate in Biology at St. Petersburg State University, Russia.  She was  selected to be a member of  Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and was appointed as Assistant Professor at the School of Biological Sciences.  She then conducted her second postdoctoral training  at the University of California, San Francisco in Professor Michael Matthay’s laboratory, before joining the Faculty at Queen’s University of Belfast in 2013, she was promoted to a Reader post in 2019. Anna has nearly 10 years’ experience in pre-clinical MSC research and her studies have informed the design of several clinical trials for MSC in ARDS and sepsis in USA, Canada and UK. Her publications in Stem Cells, 2010, Thorax and AJPLung, 2012 are recognised as seminal papers in the field (>500 citations). Her publication in Stem Cells in 2016 was recognised as the most impactful paper of the journal in 2016 and Anna was named Stem Cells Young Investigator of 2017. Her ongoing research is funded by UK Medical Research Council (PI on 3 Research Grants, >£1M in total) and Wellcome Trust.