Ivanna WILLIANTARRA
Research Fellow, Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore
ivanna_will@nus.edu.sg
Level 9 T-Lab
National University of Singapore
5A Engineering Drive 1
Singapore 117411
Ivanna Williantarra
Research Fellow
Principal Investigator
Research Areas
• Tissue mechanobiology
• Cell-ECM interaction
• Immune cell migration & chemotaxis
• Primary cilia & mechanosignalling
• Advanced cell microscopy
Qualifications
• B.Sc. in microbiology
• M.Sc. in molecular biology
• PhD in biomedical science
Biography
Prior to joining MBI, Dr. Williantarra was a Research Associate in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Trinity College, Cambridge. During her tenure at Cambridge, she led innovative research into in vivo immune cell navigation, specifically investigating how tissue geometry and group signaling influence migration dynamics. There, she pioneered a novel advanced two-photon imaging protocol to track real-time neutrophil migration following bacterial infection in vivo.
Dr. Williantarra completed her PhD in Biomedical Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she was funded by the prestigious Marsden Royal Society of New Zealand. Her doctoral research investigated the influence of extracellular matrix stiffness on primary cilia development and cellular mechanosignaling, earning her a place on the Dean’s List for Academic Achievement. She also holds an MSc in Molecular Biology (graduated with distinction, ranking in the top 10 of her class) from the Interuniversity Program in Molecular Biology (IPMB) in Belgium, supported by an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship.
Technical Skills
• Advanced imaging: two-photon & confocal microscopy, real-time live-cell imaging
• Mechanobiology and biomaterials: matrix stiffness wnalysis, biomaterial & hydrogel cell culture
• Tissue culture: primary culture, stem cell, general cell culture and in vivo zebrafish model
Selected Publications
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Liu J, Ron JE, Rinaldi G, Williantarra I, Georgantzoglou A, et al. (2026) Modelling chemotaxis of branched cells in complex environments provides insights into immune cell navigation. PLOS Computational Biology 22(2): e1013934. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013934
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Williantarra, I., Georgantzoglou, A. and Sarris, M. (2024). Visualising Neutrophil Actin Dynamics in Zebrafish in Response to Laser Wounding Using Two-Photon Microscopy. Bio-protocol 14(11): e4997. DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.4997.
- Williantarra I, Leung S, Choi YS, Chhana A, McGlashan SR. Chondrocyte-specific response to stiffness-mediated primary cilia formation and centriole positioning. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2022 Jun 1;323(1):C236-C247. DOI: 10.1152/ajpcell.00135.2022.
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Degang Wu, Peter Yiqing Li, Bangfen Pan, Zenia Tiang, Jinzhuang Dou, Ivanna Williantarra, Amadeus Yeremia Pribowo, Rizky Nurdiansyah, The SG Peranakan Project, Roger S Y Foo, Chaolong Wang, Genetic Admixture in the Culturally Unique Peranakan Chinese Population in Southeast Asia, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 38, Issue 10, October 2021, Pages 4463–4474, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab187
Other Professional Involvements
• Head of Academic Partnership, UK-Indonesia Health Genomics Forum 2025 by Genepica
• Postdoctoral representative at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, 2022-2024
