Our Newest Hawkesbury Canoe Classic PhD Scholarship Recipient: Katerina Terolli
Thanks to the outstanding fundraising efforts of the 2025 Hawkesbury Canoe Classic community, Arrow is proud to award an additional PhD scholarship this year to an exceptional young researcher: Katerina Terolli.
Katerina, a PhD student at the University of Melbourne, is undertaking pioneering research that may one day provide safer, more personalised treatment options for people living with germline GATA2 mutations—a condition that significantly increases the risk of bone marrow failure and leukaemia.
Through this scholarship, Katerina will receive $25,000 over 2.5 years, supplementing her Australian Government Research Training Program stipend and easing the financial pressure of full‑time research. This support is made possible entirely by the generosity and dedication of the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic paddlers, volunteers, and donors.
A Scholar With Outstanding Promise
Katerina’s academic achievements have been exceptional. She completed her Bachelor of Biomedicine (Honours) at the University of Melbourne with impressive academic results, placing her among the top-performing biomedical science students in the country.
Her honours year was spent investigating childhood leukaemia, using pluripotent stem cells to model disease. The work was so impressive that she was offered a research assistant position at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), where she continued to refine her laboratory expertise between 2023 and 2024. During this time, she co‑led a major research project exploring how engineered stem cells behave when carrying a leukaemia‑associated gene fusion—work that has already led to a co–first author publication submitted for review.
Beyond her research, Katerina has consistently given back to the scientific and hospital community. She has volunteered across the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, supported science outreach events such as UniStem Day, and serves on the MCRI Stem Cell Medicine Early Career Researcher Committee. Her supervisors describe her as kind, collaborative, enthusiastic, and an exceptional young scientist.
Pioneering Research for a Better Future
Katerina’s PhD project — “An autologous iHSC transplantation therapy for patients with germline GATA2 mutations”—aims to address a major unmet need for patients currently facing limited and often risky treatment options.
Right now, the only curative therapy for GATA2 deficiency is an allogeneic stem cell transplant, a lifesaving procedure but one that carries substantial risks, including chemotherapy toxicity, graft‑versus‑host disease, and relapse.
Katerina hopes to change that.
Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), her research will:
- investigate how different GATA2 mutations impact blood cell development
- test whether patient-derived cells can be corrected and safely reprogrammed
- generate healthy, personalised haematopoietic stem cells (iHSCs) that could replace damaged or failing bone marrow
- provide foundational evidence for a future autologous transplant therapy—one that uses a patient’s own genetically corrected cells
If successful, her work could offer a safer, more accessible alternative to traditional transplantation and transform the lives of people who face an elevated lifetime risk of blood cancer.
In Her Own Words
Katerina shared what this scholarship means to her:
“Undertaking a PhD is a privilege, but carries a profound responsibility. While the laboratory can be demanding—with long hours, weekend work, and often failed experiments—it is exciting to pursue research that may one day create a personalised therapy for individuals predisposed to bone marrow failure or leukemia.
Support from the Arrow Hawkesbury Canoe Classic PhD Scholarship proves that this journey is not taken alone. Your generosity will allow me to focus wholeheartedly on my research.”
Looking Ahead
Katerina’s future is bright, and her research has the potential to reshape treatment pathways for children and adults with inherited blood disorders. We are honoured to walk alongside her as she continues her scientific journey.
To everyone who contributed to the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic—thank you for helping us support brilliant young researchers like Katerina. Your effort today fuels the breakthroughs of tomorrow.