Kate Beecher Matthews

Dr. Kate Beecher Matthews is an Early Career Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the UQ Centre of Clinical Research. Her PhD research focused on the impact of long-term sucrose overconsumption on serotonin and dopamine, which are critical to the brain’s reward system.

Following her PhD, Dr Matthews joined the Perinatal Research Centre as a postdoctoral fellow, where she investigated brain injury in fetally growth-restricted infants. She is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Breast Pathology Laboratory with Prof Sunil Lakhani, A/Prof Amy McCart Reed, A/Prof Peter Simpson, and Dr Vaibhavi Joshi.

In collaboration with A/Prof McCart Reed, Dr Matthews works on two major studies investigating (1) the genomic landscape of breast cancers before and after neoadjuvant therapy, and (2) circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) monitoring in invasive lobular carcinoma. She is particularly interested in integrating her neuroscience background with breast cancer research to better understand the interaction between the nervous system and breast cancer cells within the brain.