Cancer, Autoimmunity, Immunology

Part of VU's Mechanisms and Interventions in Health and Disease group, the Cancer, Autoimmunity, Immunology focus area has the following subgroups:

Cancer Biology and Metastasis
Enteric Neuropathy
Immunology and Translational.

Cancer Biology & Metastasis

Disease/dysfunction areas: Breast, renal, melanoma, prostate and lung cancers

Cancer is the leading disease burden in Australia.

The primary cause of cancer death and mortality is the spread of the cancer to secondary sites/organs, a process termed 'metastasis'. Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of metastasis is limited, and current therapies are ineffective. No cure for metastatic cancer exists.

The overarching aims for the group are:

to define essential molecular mediators and mechanisms of metastasis
to identify and/or design drugs to block the actions of these molecules, upon which metastatic cancer cells rely for their activity, growth and survival.

We use combined expertise in the following areas:

advanced animal imaging approaches
biomarker discovery in cancer patient materials
cell and molecular biology
gene expression/bioinformatics analysis
in vivo models of metastasis
peptide-based drug design
protein biochemistry.

Our team

Staff

Professor John Price, Group Leader
Dr Craig Goodman
Dr Elizabeth Verghese
Valentina Jovanovska

Research students

Jack Bolton
Tabitha Creek
Charlett Giuliani
Joseph Polidano

Dr Elizabeth Verghese, who researches kidney disease, won the Victorian Young Achiever Award.

Enteric Neuropathy

Disease/dysfunction areas: Inflammatory bowel disease, inflammation induced cancer, mental health, colorectal cancer, inflammation induced osteosarcopenia

The Enteric Neuropathy group focuses on the development of new therapies for enteric neuropathy associated with inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, and side-effects of anti-cancer chemotherapy.

Mental-health research associated with the gut–brain axis is also a focus of the group.

The research philosophy is to translate scientific discoveries of basic science research (bench) into novel therapies for human disease (bedside).

Our research involves a range of topics, including:

enteric neuropathy as a target to alleviate gastrointestinal side-effects of chemotherapy
inflammation-induced cancer: mechanisms and novel treatments
inflammation-induced osteosarcopenia: mechanisms and novel treatments
inflammatory bowel disease: novel molecular targets for development of effective therapies
mesenchymal stem cell-based therapies for inflammatory bowel disease and coloctoral cancer
methamphetamine-induced depression: mechanisms and novel treatments
role of the nervous system in cancer development and progression.

Our team

Staff

Associate Professor Kulmira Nurgali, Group Leader
Professor Vasso Apostolopoulos
Dr Sarah Fraser
Majid Hassanzadeganroudsari
Dr Samy Sakkal
Dr Xiao Su

Research students

Elizabeth Donald
Jack Feehan
Rhiannon Filippone
Swati Garg
Elif Kadife
Abilasha Gayani Jayathilake
Ramya Juyothi
Marco Papageorgiou
Ainsley Robinson
Rhian Gordon Stavely
Shilpa Sharm

Rhian Stavely researched stem-cell therapies for inflammatory bowel disease, and has now been accepted to Harvard.

Immunology & Translational Research

Disease/dysfunction areas: Cancer, autoimmunity, metabolic disorders, mental health

The immune system plays a major role in health and disease. Understanding the cellular, molecular and functional changes to the immune system in chronic diseases will lead to their prevention, treatment and management strategies.

As well as researching immune-system changes, our group is involved in drug design and vaccine formulations for chronic diseases – in pre-clinical models, clinical research and translational focus.

Although our core discipline is immunology, we have a multi-disciplinary focus that includes: