Biography
Dr Angelica Merlot leads the Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Team in the Tumour Biology and Targeting Group at Children's Cancer Institute. Angelica has not wasted any time establishing her career as a cancer researcher, becoming Australia’s youngest-ever recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council fellowship in 2018.
‘Like many Australians, I’ve lost family members to cancer, and it’s their stories and struggles that...view more
Dr Angelica Merlot leads the Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Team in the Tumour Biology and Targeting Group at Children's Cancer Institute. Angelica has not wasted any time establishing her career as a cancer researcher, becoming Australia’s youngest-ever recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council fellowship in 2018.
‘Like many Australians, I’ve lost family members to cancer, and it’s their stories and struggles that inspire me,’ she explains. ‘I want to do research that improves patient outcomes and survival rates.’
Before joining the Institute in May 2018, Angelica worked at the University of Sydney, developing new anti-cancer drugs for particularly difficult-to-treat cancers, including pancreatic cancer. One of these drugs successfully entered a Phase 1 clinical trial in Australia.
Angelica’s work is focused on improving our understanding of how tumours grow, spread, and adapt to evade anti-cancer therapies, and applying this understanding to develop new drugs and strategies that are safer and more effective than current therapies. This involves using nanoparticles to selectively target and kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unharmed.
‘I’m very passionate about the work we do, and very focused on producing outcomes that improve survival rates,’ she says.
In 2019, Angelica was named the Premier’s Early Career Researcher of the Year (Biological Sciences) and a Tall Poppy Award Winner. Awarded the 2019 NSW Young Woman of the Year, she is a committed champion for women in science, medicine and technology, and hopes to encourage girls and women to pursue careers in research. To date, she has attracted over $2 million in grant funding, and has presented her work at more than 40 conferences in Australia and around the world.
My Awards
2024 Tour de Cure Grant
2024 UNSW Cancer Seed Grant
2023 Infrastructure Grant UNSW
2022 Infrastructure Grant UNSW
2021 Infrastructure Grant UNSW
2020 PdCCRS Cancer Australia/Cure Cancer Australia Grant
2019 NSW Early Career Researcher of the Year (Biological Sciences)
2019 Tall Poppy Award
2019 NSW Young Woman of the Year
2019 Tour de Cure Grant
2018 PdCCRS Cancer Australia/Cure Cancer Australia Grant
2019 International Outstanding Speaker Award SFRRE
2019 International Young Investigator Award SFRRI
2018 Scientia Research Fellow
2016 NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellowship
2016 CINSW ECR Fellowship
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
EXAMINING THE SURFACEOME OF BRAIN CANCER CELLS TO DEVELOP NOVEL THERAPEUTICS
Importance of the project:
• Brain Cancer Kills more children than any other disease.
• New therapeutics are difficult to develop due to the Blood Brain Barrier.
• Cancer cell surface proteins are attractive targets due to their accessibility and dysregulated expression in cancer.
• In this project, we will uncover the cell surface protein targets on brain cancer cells and develop novel targeted peptides or nanoparticle anti-cancer therapeutics.
What the project will involve:
• The project will use a combination of techniques including biotinylating membrane proteins, mass spec, the use of patient tissue, orthotopic mouse models, nanoparticle development, molecular biology experiments, microscopy, etc.
• Feel free to contact Dr. Angelica Merlot to have a chat about whether the project matches your interests.
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SPECIFIC TARGETING OF TUMOUR-PROMOTING CANCER-ASSOCIATED FIBROBLASTS IN PANCREATIC CANCER
Importance of the project:
• Pancreatic cancer remains a death sentence with only 10.7% of patients living 5 years after diagnosis
• Cancer Associated Fibroblasts contribute to disease progression, chemoresistance and metastasis
• Cancer Associated Fibroblasts can be either tumour promoting or tumour inhibiting
• This project aims to develop novel therapeutics that target tumour promoting Cancer Associated Fibroblasts, while sparing tumour inhibiting Cancer Associated Fibroblasts to improve patient outcomes.
What the project will involve:
• This study will use cell culture (a range of cells lines, including patient derived pancreatic cancer cells), fresh patient tissue, molecular biology techniques, fluorescent/confocal microscopy, mouse models, patient samples, etc.
• Feel free to contact Dr. Angelica Merlot to have a chat about whether the project matches your interests.
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TARGETING POLYAMINES TO ERADICATE THE ROOT OF RELAPSE IN NEUROBLASTOMA
Importance of the project:
• Relapse is a major cause of cancer related death.
• Cancer Stem Cells can survive cancer therapeutics and restore the tumour to become more aggressive and resistant.
• Targeting polyamines that are upregulated in Cancer Stem Cells could eradicate this population, and therefore the root of relapse in neuroblastoma.
What the project will involve:
• This Project will determine the molecular mechanism of action of a novel polyamine inhibitor combination to eradicate cancer stem cells and how this compares to drugs currently used in the clinic.
• This will involve the use of patient tissue, western blotting and/or qPCR, cell viability assays and clonogenic assays and in vivo mouse models.
Location
The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Contact
Publications
ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2599-3582