Elisa Hill-yardin PhD

Prof Elisa L. Hill-Yardin leads the Gut-Brain Axis Laboratory and is the current Deputy Chair of the Academic Board at RMIT University. Her research focuses on (i) identifying the cause of gut dysfunction in transgenic mouse models of neurological disease, (ii) determining how neurons communicate with the lymphoid system and inflammation, and (iii) understanding interactions between the nervous system and bacteria.

Prof Hill-Yardin received her PhD in Neuroscience from The University of Melbourne (2002) and subsequently moved to Paris, France, to take up a CNRS postdoctoral role in the team of Prof Bertrand Lambolez to study cortical neuronal diversity using single-cell RT-PCR in combination with patch clamp electrophysiology. She returned to Melbourne as an NHMRC Howard Florey Centenary Fellow in 2006 to join the laboratory of Prof Steve Petrou to investigate changes in neuronal networks in genetic mouse models of epilepsy. Prof Hill-Yardin imported the Neuroligin-3R451C mouse model of autism to Australia in 2009 and has since studied changes in neuronal networks, microbes, behavior, and gut dysfunction funded by the NHMRC, US Dept of Defense CDMRP, CNRS, an ARC Future Fellowship, and an RMIT Senior Vice Chancellor's Research Fellowship.

Yardin has shown that gene variations associated with autism in patients alter the numbers of neuron populations in the mouse enteric nervous system as well as gut motility and permeability. She found that these nervous system changes also disrupt the microbiome, modify responses to inflammation, and increase aggression and repetitive behaviors in mice.