Canterbury Health Laboratories is a tertiary diagnostic laboratory with strong collaborative ties to the University of Otago and a longstanding history of research collaborations across all pathology specialities.

Anja trained as microbiologist in Auckland and Christchurch and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA) in 2004. Her research interests focus is on respiratory viruses, novel diagnostic methods and application of next generation sequencing in the diagnostic space.