Professor Sumaira Hasnain is a Group Leader at the Mater Research Institute-The University of Queensland and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow. Her research focuses on barrier immunology, epithelial cell biology, and the development of novel cytokine-based therapeutics for chronic inflammatory and metabolic diseases. Her laboratory has pioneered the discovery of endogenous IL-22 signalling in maintaining epithelial homeostasis and has developed targeted IL-22 biologics and mRNA therapeutics for diseases including type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic liver disease. Her work has resulted in multiple patents, high-impact publications in Nature Medicine, Nature Communications and Journal of Experimental Medicine, and translation into commercial development.