Resistance Prevention
This program will work on understanding the mechanisms underlying response and resistance to contemporary cancer therapies. It is envisaged that laboratory findings will be translated directly from bench to bedside through clinical trials.
Work will include:
- Specialised expertise in metabolism and radiation biology with precision medicine focus.
- Clinically relevant, patient derived models to reduce the gulf between laboratory and patient.
- Ability to translate targets to novel therapeutics - established links to medicinal chemistry for small molecular development - emerging interest in PROTAC/ENTAC for protein degradation/stabilisation.
The Paediatric and Neuro-oncology program will utilise the close links to the Braggs Comprehensive Cancer Centre, which is Australia’s first proton therapy centre and the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It is expected to be treating approximately 700 patients per year from 2025. The program’s research teams will also work closely with SAiGENCI affiliates such as Professor Jordan Hansford.
Computational Cancer Immunogenomics Laboratory
Group Leader - Dr Stefano Mangiola
Dr Stefano Mangiola is the head of the Computational Cancer Immunogenomics laboratory at SAiGENCI. At SAiGENCI, the lab's research is centred on elucidating the intricate interplay between cancer and the immune system through sophisticated multiomic profiling and advanced computational strategies.
Dr Mangiola and his team employ high-throughput and cutting-edge next-generation technologies, such as spatial and single-cell sequencing, coupled with metabolomics, to intricately map the immune response and trace the pathways of cancer progression and metastasis.
The lab’s focus on modelling the immune tissue and tissue biology through large-scale data modelling will be propelled by novel, highly scalable analysis pipelines and the use of machine learning techniques on demographic-scale datasets.
OncoTherapeutics and Biology Laboratory
L-R: Steffi Tiburcius, Dr Kimberley Clark, Professor Christopher Sweeney, Dr Mark Bunting, Thuy Trang To
Group Leader - Professor Christopher Sweeney
The Sweeney Research Group has a translational research focus and works to better understand the
underlying biology of prostate cancer and improve therapies for patients.
Prostate cancer is a complex disease that affects millions of men globally. Development of prostate cancer
involves corruption of the normal prostate transcriptional network, following deregulated expression or
mutation of key transcription factors. The group is interested in understanding how many of these
transcription factors affect prostate cancer development, from localised disease to castration-resistant
metastatic prostate cancer, and subsequently finding viable therapeutic approaches to benefit patients.
The research team is led by Professor Christopher Sweeney, who has devoted his clinical and academic career
to developing strategies to improve the care of patients with genitourinary malignancies with a major focus on
prostate cancer and testicular cancer
People
Professor Lisa Butler
Program Lead, Resistance Prevention
Dr Stefano Mangiola
Group Leader, Computational Cancer Immunogenomics Laboratory
Professor Christopher Sweeney
Group Leader, OncoTherapeutics and Biology Laboratory
Researchers
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Computational Cancer Immunogenomics Laboratory
Dr Dharmesh Bhuva
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Chen Zhan
Postdoctoral Researcher
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OncoTherapeutics and Biology Laboratory
Dr Mark Bunting
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Kimberley Clark
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Kristen Feher
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Katherine Morel
Postdoctoral Researcher
Thuy Trang To
Research Co-ordinator
Prostate Cancer Research Group (SAHMRI)
Our internationally-recognised research is tackling localised and metastatic prostate cancer.