Lab focus: Breast cancer, stem cells, BCL-2, BRCA1, clinical translation

I am a clinician-scientist focusing on breast stem cell biology and translational breast cancer research. My laboratory, jointly headed with Professor Jane Visvader, is working to understand how normal and cancerous cells develop in the breast. We are using this information to advance new treatments for breast cancer.

We have made important contributions to breast cancer research including:

• Identifying breast stem cells, which give rise to normal breast tissue.
• Defining how normal breast growth is regulated, and how errors lead to breast cancer.
• Identifying the breast cells that are predisposed to becoming cancerous in women with BRCA1 gene mutations.
• Discovering potential strategies to treat and prevent breast cancer.

An important focus of our laboratory is the transfer of discoveries to the clinic. Towards this end, we have generated valuable preclinical models to study novel treatments. Several laboratory discoveries are entering clinical trials.

Research interest

Our laboratory is studying molecular regulators of normal breast development and cancer, with a particular interest in understanding how mammary stem cells and their progeny contribute to the mammary epithelial cell hierarchy. Using this approach, it should be possible to decipher the molecular and cellular events that lead to breast cancer.

Our work led to the discovery of RANK-positive progenitors as a target for breast cancer prevention in BRCA1 mutation carriers, now being studied in an international phase 3 breast cancer prevention trial, BRCA-P. 

Our laboratory also uses patient derived xenograft (PDX) and organoid models to test promising anti-cancer agents. Pre-clinical studies on BH3 mimetics (which target survival pathways in tumour cells) has led to early phase studies of the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax in breast cancer.

My group, which has direct links to the clinic, oversees the Translational Centre for Breast Cancer Research (TransBCR), supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence Grant.