Professor Rachel Allavena is a specialist veterinary pathologist, multidisciplinary researcher and Deputy Head of School, at the School of Veterinary Science, Gatton. She develops cancer treatments called immunotherapies which wake up the immune system so it fights the cancer. Her unique approach uses pet dogs with natural cancer to conduct the research. This helps the dog and it's family, as well as progressing the development of veterinary treatments and simultaneously advancing human medicine. As Deputy Head of School she aims to support staff and students to make UQ one of the top school's in Australasia, supporting both pets and people. Rachel is a multi-award winning teacher, lecturinging in veterinary pathology, toxicology, animal welfare and laboratory animal science. Her specialist expertise is nationally and internationally recognised in forensics, animal cruelty and toxicology where she acts as an expert witness in criminal and civil legal cases. She is a strong advocate for racing animal welfare, investigating racing animal injury and deaths and conducting research on how to improve animal welfare in sport, society and research. Prof Allavena has an active media profile and has been featured in national and international media including The Conversation, ABC national and regional radio and TV news, commercial and community TV and radio. In 2022-2023 she is a 'Flying Scientist' for Queensland's Office of the Chief Scientist. Rachel really enjoys doing presentations to school students and teachers as well as public outreach events to promote science to the general public. She has presented a TEDx talk on how dogs can help us cure cancer.
Prof Allavena has a PhD in Comparative Medicine from Cornell Univesity in New York, and undertook her pathology specialistation at Ontario Veterinary College. She has worked in drug safety research and development in the pharmaceutical industry in preclinical safety testing and discovery research in the United Kingdom. Her research interests are strongly focused on comparative and translational medicine and animal model validation and development in rodents, dogs and other laboratory animal species. Her major research projects include developing novel cancer immunotherapics and diagnostics for pet dogs naturally suffering from cancer both as a veterinary therapy and comparative model for human cancer. Further, she has extensive research in drivers of koala population decline in SEQLD. She has wide ranging research collaborations specialising in the pathological assessment and study design for animal models in a variety of areas including novel therapeutics, drug safety, toxicology and natural envenomations, biometallic implants, and animal welfare in laboratory animals and domestic species. She is a board certified veterinary anatomic pathologist with the American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) and a registered specialist veterinary anatomic pathologist with the Veterinary Surgeon's Board of Queensland through the Australian Veterinary Boards Council. She is the lead diagnostic anatomic pathologist in the UQ School of Veterinary Science Veterinary Laboratory Service, and in her professional capacity she oversees cases for Racing Queensland, Queensland Police and RSPCA Queensland, with a special interest in animal welfare and forensic pathology. She has an extensive successful track record of training anatomic pathologists for American College of Veterinary Pathology board certification. She was awarded a Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award in 2015 and a UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2021. She has served as an office holder in the Pathobiology chapter of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists and the Australian Society of Veterinary Pathologists.
Dr Lauren Aoude was awarded a PhD in melanoma genetics from the University of Queensland in 2014. Her research focused on large scale genetic sequencing projects that described novel melanoma predisposition genes. In 2016, Dr Aoude was awarded an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship to investigate precision medicine for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.
Currently, Dr Aoude is a UQ Amplify Fellow in the Surgical Oncology Group at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute. Her research primarily focuses on ways to better predict treatment responses and outcomes for patients with cancer, particularly melanoma and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Her research integrates genomic sequencing data from both tumours and circulating tumour DNA with clinical, pathological and imaging information. The results of her research will inform treatment decisions and improve health outcomes for patients through the integration of genomics into the clinic.
Professor Andrew Barbour is an academic general surgeon who specialises in upper gastrointestinal, pancreatic, melanoma and sarcoma surgery.
On completion of his training, Dr Barbour worked at the Bristol Royal Infirmary as an Upper Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Surgery Fellow and then as a Surgical Oncology Fellow at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York.
Professor Andrew Barbour specializes in the treatment of oesophageal, gastric, and pancreatic diseases, as well as melanoma and soft tissue tumours. He has expertise in minimally invasive treatments these conditions, including robotic surgery, minimally invasive oesophagectomy, laparoscopic anti-reflux surgery (fundoplication), laparoscopic gastrectomy, and laparoscopic pancreatectomy.
Professor Barbour’s research interests are in the treatment of cancer. His academic interests have encompassed the areas of 1) clinical research, including randomised controlled clinical trials, 2) laboratory based research, including molecular biology pertinent to upper gastrointestinal disease, pancreatic cancer and melanoma, 3) translational research integrating the laboratory and clinical domains, and 4) health-related quality of life and patient reported outcomes research.
As a clinical researcher, Prof Barbour has been active in the conduct of clinical trials at Phase I, II and III levels. He was the Principal Investigator for investigator initiated, multicentre phase II trials in oesophageal (DOCTOR trial) and pancreatic cancer (GAP Trial), funded by the NH&MRC and sponsored by the Australasian Gastrointestinal Trials Group (AGITG). Both of these national trials include biological substudies with tumour tissue and blood banking and subsequent molecular analyses aimed at answering specific questions, including the identification of biomarkers of response to therapy. These studies are aimed at developing personalized, precision therapy for cancer. The DOCTOR trial was the first trial to use PET scans to “tailor” or “personalize” therapy for patients with oesophageal cancer. The GAP trial has shown that pre-operative chemotherapy is a safe strategy for patients with pancreatic cancer. Building on the GAP trial, the AGITG has undertaken the MRFF funded MASTERPLAN clinical trial for pancreatic cancer exploring th e role of stereotactic radiation in pancreatic cancer. Professor Barbour is the Chair of the AGITG Upper GI working party and a member of the AGITG Board.
Prof Barbour is a translational researcher at the School of Medicine, The University of Queensland. He is the head of Surgical Oncology Lab at the School of Medicine. His research has focused on using genomic, epigenomic, mRNA expression and next generation sequencing data to classify oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC), pancreatic cancer and melanoma and to identify biomarkers of outcome. His lab team was the first to identify genomic catastrophes as potential drivers for oesophageal adenocarcinoma. In addition, his lab is seeking to identify genetic markers in melanoma that will identify patients at high risk for recurrence following surgery and to identify patients who will benefit from the current exciting advances in treatment for advanced melanoma. His work in melanoma is supported by a Queensland Advancing Clinical Research Fellowship. He was also a member of the Australian Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative (APGI) that has published several key studies that have improved our understanding of pancreatic cancer. His lab is currently undertaking studies using next generation sequencing of tumour and circulating tumour DNA. Professor Barbour is the Chief Investigator for the Cancer Evolution Biobank based at the Translational Research Institute. This biobank contains tumour tissue and blood from patients with melanoma, oesophageal or gastric cancer linked to clinical outcomes and supports several research projects.
After receiving a PhD on immune regulation from La Sorbonne Universitas in France, Anne-Sophie joined Prof. Ian Frazer’s lab in Australia where she led a highly successful and independent research program on the mechanisms of immune tolerance in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated lesions in mice. She then joined the field of autoimmune diseases with Prof. Ranjeny Thomas. In Type 1 Diabetes, her pre-clinical data showed the feasibility of an antigen-specific liposome targeted immunotherapy in pre-diabetic mice and led to the first-in-human clinical trial using liposome nanoparticles. In Spondyloarthropathy, her interest is focused on deciphering the link between the gut microbiome, the immune system and the development of arthritic inflammation.
Dr Sandra Brosda is a Research Fellow within the Surgical Oncology group led by Professor Andrew Barbour.
Dr Brosda was awarded a PhD in bioinformatics and cancer genetics from the University of Queensland in November 2020. Her research focused on biomarker discovery and intra-tumour heterogeneity and tumour evolution in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC). In 2021, Dr Brosda was awarded a Cure Cancer Australia PdCCRS grant and an MSH project grant to further investigate tumour evolution to improve precision medicine in OAC.
She has been involved in research projects covering genetics, epigenetics, spatial transcriptomics, radiomics, ctDNA and quality of life assessments in the context of cancer. Overall, her research applies bioinformatics tools and approaches to cancer genomics to improve precision medicine and health outcomes for patients with melanoma, oesophago-gastric cancer and pancreatic cancer.
PROFESSOR MELISSA BROWN IS UNABLE TO SUPERVISE NEW STUDENTS FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE DUE TO HER COMMITMENTS AS EXECUTIVE DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE.
BIOGRAPHY
Melissa Brown completed her PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne in 1993, on the structure and regulation of genes encoding colony-stimulating factor receptors in human leukaemia.
She then undertook postdoctoral training at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London, funded firstly by an EMBO and then by an ICRF postdoctoral fellowship, working on the isolation and characterization of the first breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1.
She joined The University of Queensland in 2000 as a Lecturer and is now a Professor and Executive Dean. In 2005 she undertook a six-month sabbatical at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at The University of Oxford.
The focus of Melissa’s research is cancer genetics, in particular understanding the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of breast cancer genes and the impact of genetic variants on cancer risk and progression.
Dr Bena Brown is a clinician/researcher who brings her passion for caring for people with cancer and their families to her current role in the FNCWR team, where her focus is on delivering projects that optimise survivorship and cancer health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. These projects include implementing novel models of care such as navigation and health behaviour intervention, optimising communication and access to services through the development and evaluation of culturally responsive resources.
Bena has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, has presented at multiple national and international conferences, and has been awarded over $3.6 million in research grants.
She is also an Advanced Speech Pathologist (Cancer Care) at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital and provides RHD supervision for higher-degree students in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in UQ's Health and Behavioural Sciences Faculty. Bena is a member of the Human Research and Ethics Committees at Metro South Health and serves on State-wide committees for the Queensland Collaborative for Cancer Survivorship and the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (COSA) Patient-Reported Outcome Working Group.
Outside her research and clinical career, Bena is mum to two boisterous boys, a keen yogi, and passionate student and board member at Vulcana Circus.
Paul Clarke is Director of the Frazer Institute, a leading translational medical research centre studying cancer, autoimmune diseases, infection and immunity, and the genetic basis of disease. Professor Clarke became Director in 2017 and was previously Associate Dean (Research) in Medicine at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in England, and Research Fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Professor Clarke studied Biochemistry at the University of Bristol and undertook research for his PhD at the University of Dundee.
Frazer Institute, formerly UQ Diamantina Institute, is named in honour of its Founding Director, Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer, co-discoverer of the Gardasil HPV cervical cancer vaccine. Frazer Institute is part of The University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine and is a key partner in the Translational Research Institute, a $360 million research facility at the Princess Alexandra Hospital precinct in Woolloongabba. Scientists and clinical researchers at Frazer Institute develop new methods for the prevention, detection and treatment of human diseases.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
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Scott manages the radiation oncology medical physics research portfolio at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, including the supervision of higher degree research students. He joined the Cancer Care Services team in 2015, following a post-doctoral research fellowship and is registered as a qualified medical physics specialist with the Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine. He is the clinical lead of the Cancer Care Services program at the Herston Biofabrication Institute. His research interests include applications of 3D printing in oncology, the quantitative assessment of radiotherapy treatment quality and complexity, and radiation dosimetry.
Dr Tracey Di Sipio is a teaching and research academic in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Division of the School of Public Health. Dr Di Sipio is an experienced cancer epidemiologist with a focus on women’s cancers, caregivers, and health equity.
Kwun is a Thoracic and Sleep Physician at The Prince Charles Hospital and University of Queensland Thoracic Research Centre (UQTRC). His research interests are focussed on making and translating research discoveries to improving outcomes and the health of people who are affected by lung disease particularly lung cancer screening/early detection and biomarkers. The UQTRC is also passionate at enabling productive collaborations to maximise research impact and scale with contributions to The Cancer Genome Atlas Project, Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG), IASLC Lung Cancer Staging Project and others.
Professor Ian Frazer is a clinician scientist, trained as a clinical immunologist in Scotland. As a professor at the University of Queensland, he leads a research group working at TRI in Brisbane, Australia on the immunobiology of epithelial cancers. He is recognised as co-inventor of the technology enabling the HPV vaccines, currently used worldwide to help prevent cervical cancer. He heads a biotechnology company, Jingang Medicine (Aus) Pty Ltd, working on new vaccine technologies, and is a board member of several companies and not for profit organisations. He was the inaugural president of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and a member of the Australian National Science and Technology Council. He chairs the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board of the Medical Research Future Fund.
He was recognised as Australian of the Year in 2006. He was recipient of the Prime Ministers Prize for Science, and of the Balzan Prize, in 2008, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2012. He was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2013.
