Rate My Professor Pritinder Kaur

Adjunct Associate Professor Pritinder Kaur is an epithelial stem cell biologist serving as Lab Head in the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. She earned a BSc Honours in Cell Biology from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Manchester at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in 1985. Her postdoctoral training took place at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle from 1985 to 1990. Subsequently, she held a Florey Fellowship and served as Associate Member at the Hanson Centre for Cancer Research in Adelaide from 1990 to 1999. From 2000 to 2015, Kaur was Lab Head and Group Leader of the Epithelial Stem Cell Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. She then acted as Head of Department at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Ritchie Centre in Clayton from July 2015 to March 2016. Since January 2016, she has led her laboratory at Curtin University, Curtin Medical Research Institute, investigating the cellular and molecular interactions between human epithelial stem cells and their mesenchymal microenvironment, including pericytes and fibroblasts, using models such as skin, ovary, and esophagus to study tissue homeostasis, wound healing, skin regeneration, and cancer progression.

Pritinder Kaur was the first to isolate stem cells from human skin and demonstrate their properties. Her key publications include "Pericytes promote skin regeneration by inducing epidermal cell polarity and planar cell divisions" (2018), "Mechanisms underlying acquired platinum resistance in high grade serous ovarian cancer—a mini-review" (2019), "Relationship between ovarian cancer stem cells, epithelial mesenchymal transition and tumour recurrence" (2019), "Dermal pericytes exhibit declined ability to promote human epidermal regeneration with aging" (2021), and "Binary organization of epidermal basal domains highlights hierarchical organization of human epidermal stem cells" (2022). She secured $737,690 in medical research funding for a 3D bioprinting skin project in 2020 and previously received NHMRC funding for keratinocyte stem cell research. Kaur is an Editorial Board Member for Stem Cells (since 2004) and Stem Cell Reviews and Reports (since 2008), and Associate Editor (Australia) for Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy (since 2013). She is a long-standing executive member of the Australasian Society for Dermatology Research and the Australasian Wound and Tissue Repair Society, recipient of the ASDR/JSID Collegiality Award, and member of the Stem Cell Therapies Mission Expert Advisory Panel.