Melinda received her PhD from the University of Queensland studying human dendritic cells and ideal conditions to induce robust tumour-specific T-cell responses in cancer models. She currently holds a senior postdoctoral appointment within the Coeliac Disease laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. Her research interests include understanding the gluten-specific T-cell response induced by gluten challenge in people with coeliac disease. She also aims to better understand why gluten induces severe symptoms in only a subset of patients and determine whether non-gluten containing grains induce detrimental immune responses in some patients.