Minh Dao Ngo is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow who works in the Infection, Immunity and Metabolism Group at the Mater Research Institute at the University of Queensland. You can follow Minh on LinkedIn by clicking here.
Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became interested in pulmonary fibrosis research:
I have been working as an MD in Vietnam before coming to Australia to undertake a PhD at the University of Queensland. During my PhD, I studied how metabolic disturbances in obesity and diabetes influence immune responses to various lung infections including tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19. This work sparked my interest in the role of lipid dysregulation, particularly cholesterol and its metabolites in shaping lung immunity and inflammation.
We found that these same pathways also contribute to chronic lung disease pathogenesis like pulmonary fibrosis, where lipid homeostasis is also impaired. The opportunity to translate these findings into novel therapeutics across different lung diseases is what drive my research further into pulmonary fibrosis.
How would you explain your pulmonary fibrosis research to someone unfamiliar with the field?
Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition where the lungs gradually become scarred and stiff. My research looks at how certain molecules called oxysterols control the way immune cells move into the lungs and trigger inflammation. In healthy conditions, this response helps the body fight infections and support tissue repair, but in susceptible people it may contributes to persistent inflammation and trigger fibrosis. By understanding how oxysterols contribute to this scarring process, we can find ways to slow or even stop disease progression.
Why is this work important?
Pulmonary fibrosis has very limited treatment options and many patients face poor long-term outcomes. Our recent discoveries point to oxysterols as mediators of immune cells migration and inflammation in infectious and chronic lung diseases. This work holds strong potential to advance therapeutic potential of targeting oxysterol signalling pathways, leading to improved outcomes for patients with IPF and other chronic ILDs
What are the best bits about working in this area?
For me, it’s the opportunity to collaborate with clinicians and scientists from different disciplines, particularly within the CREATE network. it strengthens the translational impact of preclinical studies, knowing what we discover in the lab could potentially benefit patients.
What are some of your biggest achievements to date?
Uncovering a previously unknown role of oxysterols in controlling immune cell recruitment during tuberculosis infection, published as a cover page in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2022. Successfully transitioning this knowledge into chronic lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis, which led to my being awarded the Centre of Research Excellence in Pulmonary Fibrosis Hope Fellowship in 2023.
Leading collaborations across research groups, secured competitive funding, the Leading Innovations through New Collaborations (LINC) in 2024.
What would you like to work on in the future, if funding were not an issue?
I would aim develop novel anti-inflammatory therapies by targeting oxysterol pathways, evaluating their effectiveness across a range of models in both infectious and chronic lung diseases. Integrating advanced approaches such as spatial lipidomic and transcriptomics to gain deeper insights into how lipid mediators shape immune responses and tissue pathology.
What advice would you offer ECRs just starting out in the field?
I think that collaboration is key, and building a supportive network of peers and mentors will make the difference. Also thinking about how your research connects to patient outcomes and what translational value it might hold throughout the way.
Where do you hope to see yourself in your career in the next 5 years? Are there any shifts you would like to see in the field during that time?
In the next 5 years, I hope to become an independent researcher pursuing a translational research program that connects laboratory discoveries with early-phase clinical trials with the focus on chronic lung diseases.
At the same time, I remain passionate about clinical medicine and hope to progress towards resuming medical practice in Australia. Being able to integrate a clinical perspective with scientific research would allow me to bridge the gap between laboratory innovation and patient care. I believe this dual role not only enriches the research questions being asked but also ensures that my studies remain patient centred and clinically meaningful.