Every 3 minutes, someone in Australia has a stroke. There are over 1000 treatments developed for stroke that work in animals or a petri dish, but only one works in humans. Why? Part of the problem lies in the way these drugs are tested. Dr Lila Landowski is developing a new model for testing these potential therapies, to better guide future drug development.

Lila also studies fatigue. Fatigue is more than just a feeling of tiredness, and can be associated with things like difficulty thinking, slowed reflexes and headaches. Fatigue is usually triggered in response to infections. However, in some people, the switch that returns the body to normal seems to fail, resulting in chronic fatigue. Lila is trying to figure out how this happens.

Dr Lila Landowski is a neuroscientist at the UTAS School of Medicine, a Director of the Australian Society for Medical Research, a Director of Epilepsy Tasmania, as well as a regular guest science communicator for the ABC. Lila is a multi-award-winning scientist, including the Premier’s Young Achiever of the Year, a Tasmanian finalist for Young Australian of the Year, and a Young Tall Poppy award winner.

Dr Lila Landowski is a Superstar of STEM.