I offer and already supervise Honours and PhD projects investigating actionable tumour biomarkers from blood biopsies. In particular we take blood samples and isolate circulating tumour cells (CTCs) or circulating tumour nucleic acids (ctNAs) and analyse these with highly sensitive methods such as droplet digital PCR for biomarkers. As these measurements can be undertaken throughout a patient's cancer journey; they guide therapy options while the cancer is changing.

Biomarkers we are investigating are for example oncogenic mutations (EGFR, BRAF, KRAS, ESR1), gene amplifications (Her2, androgen receptor, c-Met) or gene expression (androgen receptor variant V7, AR-V7). CTCs and ctNAs are relevant for all solid cancers. For example we are currently working on: lung, breast, prostate, brain, ovarian cancer as well as melanoma.

Currently supervising

Through UNSW and other Universities I am currently main supervisor of three PhD students with projects into prostate, brain and breast cancer. I am also co-supervising three PhD projects into lung and pancreatic cancer. I have successfully supervised ILP an BSC (Med) Hon projects (2016, 2018,2019) and the students were awarded several best poster/oral presentation prizes at high profile conferences. All students have authored publications, in fact one ILP student just published a first author journal publication in an impact factor 5.7 journal, while Phd students will generally average 2-3 first author and several middle author journal publications.

View less