Dr Varun Venkatesh is an early career researcher from Wellington, New Zealand. Dr Venkatesh was awarded his PhD from Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in 2019, studying the role of the apelinergic signalling system in glioblastoma in the lab of Dr Darren Day. Dr Venkatesh then went on to work within VUW as a lecturer of biology and researcher in the field of neuroscience with Professor Bart Ellenbroek studying the role of the serotonergic system and the synaptic molecule drebrin in neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr Venkatesh is currently a research scientist in the lab of Associate Professor Rachel Davey and Professor Jeffrey Zajac in the Molecular Endocrinology and Musculoskeletal Research Group. Dr Venkatesh's broad research interests center around dissecting multicellular interactions to develop novel therapies for human pathologies.