Dr. Eleanor Saunders is a Senior Research Fellow in biochemistry at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on characterising the metabolism of Leishmania, a single-celled human pathogen and significant neglected tropical disease agent. Employing advanced mass spectrometry platforms and high-throughput approaches, she aims to elucidate central carbon metabolism in the parasite and understand how these metabolic processes intersect with the biology of the human host macrophage.

Dr. Saunders completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne and has made sustained and significant contributions to understanding the metabolism of this neglected pathogen. Working alongside Professor Malcolm McConville, she employs a diverse range of analytical platforms, including stable isotope tracing workflows, system perturbation strategies, high-content imaging, and both in vitro and in vivo models of infection. Together, these approaches enable the interrogation of parasite and macrophage metabolism in parallel, and the generation of high-quality, model-ready datasets well suited to systems biology integration.

Dr. Saunders is an active collaborator, engaging broadly across the University of Melbourne and with external partners including the Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics, Metabolomics Australia, and the Australian Gut Metabolome Initiative.