TRI Monthly SEMINAR SERIES

Date & Time

Title: 'Progenitor behaviour in the skin during wound healing, carcinogenesis and cancer progression'.

Skin conditions such as wounds, scars or cancers constitute a major burden in Australia and globally. In many of these conditions, there is a response to injury that is unifrm and employs the same ingredients. We will discuss a new definition of endothelial progenitors and show how they respond and modulate outcomes in situations such as skin wounds, scars or cancer progression. Similarly, epidermal progenitors play an essential role in the response to ultraviolet radiation. In particular, keratinocyte cancers arising from field cancerisation after ultraviolet exposure of these cells represent the second cancer related cost given their high incidence. The burden of disease resides in the multiplicity of lesions over a life time. It is therefore essential to understand the factors that contribute to the progression of individual clones of mutated keratinocytes. Using multicolour lineage tracing we have tracked over time the changes in clone size in chronically UV irradiated skin and provide evidence of anatomical variation in susceptibility to carcinogenesis based on epidermal progenitors proliferative behaviour.

Overall these two model systems clearly demonstrate how cancer development and progression exploits normal stem/progenitor cell behaviour and response to injury.

UVB radiation is responsible for most mutations in the epidermis and it does not reach the deep adnexal components of the skin where stem cells reside. We investigated if surface epidermal ablation would allow less mutated cells from the deeper adnexae to restore an un-mutated epidermis. Patients with history of multiple epidermal cancers were subjected to epidermal ablation. DNA sequencing of 152 cancer related genes on the epidermal component revealed a massive reduction in mutation burden on ablated and regenerated epidermis compared to control. Furthermore, epidermal abrasion on BCC murine model resulted in a significant decrease in BCC numbers.

Professor Derek Richard completed an undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He spent four years as a Fellow at St Andrews University before moving to Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane Australia. In 2011 Derek moved his Cancer & Ageing Research Program to the Queensland University of Technology. The Cancer & Ageing Research Program truly represents a united culture striving for excellence, seeking to understand the DNA repair systems function to protect our genetic code from disease causing mutations. Questioning, how these protective processes go wrong with age, driving disease initiation.

Bahar completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences at the Queensland University of Technology before undertaking her honours degree to investigate the intracellular trafficking of MMP’s within macrophages at chronic wounds. Bahar is now a PhD candidate within the Cell Cycle Team at the Cancer and Ageing Research Program focusing on epidermal growth factor signal transduction and autophagy, with an end target to reveal new avenues for enhancing non-small cell lung cancer treatments.

An overview of the Centre for Kidney Disease research, including the Australisian Kidney Trials Network and BEAT-CKD Collaboration will be presented by Professor David Johnson followed by 'infectious complications following kidney transplant' presented by Dr Samuel Chan.  

'Expression of the EMT modulator SMAIL in AML - a model of LSD1 corruption'

Dr Catherine Carmichael completed her PhD and initial postdoctoral training at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute between 2004-2013. Her research focuses on gaining an understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) development and pathogenesis; with the ultimate goal of identifying novel methods for therapeutically targeting this extremely poor outcome malignancy. >Bio

'The Role of the interdisciplinary team in translational research' 

Professor Fiona Wood is one of Australia’s most innovative and respected surgeons and researchers. A highly skilled plastic and reconstructive surgeon and world leading burns specialist, she has pioneered research and technology development in burns medicine.

More about Professor Wood

Tuesday 2 July

12pm-1pm

Dr Elizabeth Sigston

A/Prof Elizabeth Williams

'Think you know cancer? Think again'

Dr. Elizabeth Sigston is a surgeon in Otorhinolyngology, Head & Neck Surgery (ORLHNS) at Monash Health, including the new Monash Children's Hospital. Dr. Sigston sub specializes in Head & Neck Cancer, Head & Neck Surgery, and Paediactric ENT. >More

Tuesday 2 April

12pm-1pm

Dr Kirstin Alford

A/Prof Elizabeth Williams

“With dynamic, changing exhibition programs, MOD. inspires young adults aged 15+ about science and technology, showcasing how research shapes our understanding of the world to inform the future.”

Tuesday 2 April

12pm-1pm

Dr Tasha Stanton

A/Prof Elizabeth Williams

“With dynamic, changing exhibition programs, MOD. inspires young adults aged 15+ about science and technology, showcasing how research shapes our understanding of the world to inform the future.”

Date & Time

Dr Herb Kressel, Harvard

Professor Felipe Prosper MD,PhD

Head of the Hematology and Cell Therapy Department

University of Navarra, Spain

Title: "Harnessing Epigenetics to improve diagnoses and treatment of cancer."

Professor Prosper graduated from the University of Navarra in 1989 and after his residency and PhD he completed his fellowship and postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota. Relocated to the Clinica Universidad de Navarra in 2001, he was responsible for the development of the cell therapy program where he became the Head of Hematology and Cell Therapy in 2003 and Director of the programs of Hematology and Cell Therapy at the center for Applied Medical Research at the University of Navarra in 2012.

Prosper has published more than 280 peer review articles in top journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics or Blood among others, with an h-factor of 53 and over 9890 citations.

Tuesday 20 March 

12.00 - 1.00pm 

Dr Cameron Turtle 

Fred Hutch Cancer Centre Seattle, Clinical Trials Immunotherapy 

Dr Kristen Radford, Mater

Dr. Turtle is currently an Attending Physician on the Fred Hutch Bone Marrow Transplant Program and the Immunotherapy Service at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), a cancer treatment center that unites doctors from Fred Hutch, University of Washington Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Dr Cameron Turtle Full Biography 

Dr Boris Holzapfel

Dr. med. at Ludwigs-Maximilians University of Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Title: 'Patient Specific Design, Planning and Surgery of Complex Orthopaedic Tumor Cases'

Dr Boris Holzapfel is an orthopaedic oncologist and surgeon with outstanding experience in the treatment of primary and secondary tumours of the musculoskeletal system. In this context he is trying to implement bone tissue engineering approaches into surgical therapy concepts of these tumours.

His translational research is focused on the biology of bone and soft tissue sarcomas and on the molecular mechanisms that lead to the development of bone metastases. By combining his knowledge about bone tissue engineering and tumour biology, he established several novel xenograft models of bone metastasis that make it possible to analyse the species-specific mechanisms of human cancer cell osteotropism.

Date & Time

30 May 2017 *Please note date change

12.00 - 1.00pm 

Prof Alan Mackay-Sim, 2017 Australian of the Year

Dr Alexandre Cristino

Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia: from stem cells to drug discovery

6 June 2017

12.00 - 1.00pm 

A/Prof Michael Samuel, Head Tumour Microenvironment Lab, Centre for Cancer Biology,

SA Pathology & the University of South Australia

Prof Rik Thompson

Biochemical and biomechanical inter-relationships in cancer and wound healing

Title: Rewriting the transcriptome: ADAR1 mediated A-to-I RNA editing

One of the most prevalent forms of post-transcriptional RNA modification is the conversion of adenosine bases to inosine (A-to-I), mediated by the ADAR family of enzymes. A-to-I editing is a widespread feature of the transcriptome, with estimates ranging from tens of thousands in mice to millions of A-to-I editing events in humans and primates. We have used in vivo haematology as a system to understand how RNA editing by ADAR1 regulates the transcriptome, and how this interfaces with the innate immune system and enables discrimination of self and non-self nucleic acids.​

Imagine 2017