A recipient of Young Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater and an Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence, Jo’s career as an applied livestock geneticist and science communicator was starting to flourish when her world was turned upside down. In 2019, days before her 30th birthday, Jo was diagnosed with bowel cancer. A bowel re-section and 6 months of chemotherapy soon followed. Jo finished treatment in January 2020. Jo holds a PhD in quantitative genetics from the University of New England, Australia. This is complemented by 15 years’ leadership and management experience volunteering in the not-for-profit sector, particularly in advocacy and support of young people in agriculture. In 2020, Jo was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to agriculture through her advocacy and support of young people, volunteering and contributions to dairy research. Grateful for the science which saved her life and recognising the advantage her scientific training gave Jo in navigating the health care system, Jo now draws upon her advocacy and communication skills to share her experience as a patient advocate.
Keynote Speakers
Professor Razelle Kurzrock, MD
Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of Wisconsin,Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Professor of Medicine, Associate Director, Clinical Research, Linda T. And John A. Mellowes Endowed Chair of Precision Oncology Founding Director, Michels Rare Cancers Research Laboratories, MCW Cancer Center Chief Medical Officer, Worldwide Innovative Network (WIN) for Personalized Cancer Therapy
Professor Razelle Kurzrock, MD, is a world leader in precision medicine and immunotherapy. As a board-certified practicing medical oncologist and researcher, she is one of the most highly cited scientists globally per Clarivate (Web of Science). She oversees the development of a new Precision Medicine and Rare Cancers initiative and has assumed leadership of the cancer clinical trials enterprise at MCW. Dr. Kurzrock is known for founding/chairing the largest Phase 1 clinical trials department in the world while at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. More recently, at the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, Dr. Kurzrock founded and directed the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy and the Experimental Therapeutics Program and served as Chief of Hematology and Oncology. Dr. Kurzrock has served as national/international principal investigator on more than 100 clinical trials and brought oversight to more than 500 early-phase trials, with many agents yielding FDA approvals. She is the author of more than >900 peer-reviewed articles on PubMed and holds a highly exceptional Hirsch index (h-index) score of 142, with more than 82,000 citations.Her strong record of competitive funding is comprised of ~$125 million in lifetime funding, including ~$50 million in NIH research support Dr Kurzrock also serves as the Chair of the Early Therapeutics and Rare Cancer Committee (NCI SWOG) and as one of the PIs of the DART trial (national immunotherapy trial for rare cancers, opened at >1000 sites) as well as the PI of TRACK, the national precision genomics trial for rare cancers sponsored by the TargetCancer Foundation.
Professor Jonathan Karpelowsky, MBBCh. FCS. Cert Paed Surg. FRACS. PhD
The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, AUS
Professor of Paediatric Surgery Division of Child and Adolescent Health Children's Hospital Westmead, University of Sydney, Australia
Professor Jonathan Karpelowsky is an academic paediatric surgeon at the Children’s hospital Westmead and Professor at the University of Sydney. He undertook both his adult and paediatric surgical training in Cape Town followed by his PhD before being recruited to Sydney in 2010.His clinical focus is in paediatric surgical oncology and thoracic surgery. He is the principal surgical oncologist and runs a long term follow up clinic for complex surgical thoracic conditions in childhood. His surgical techniques focus on novel minimally invasive surgery and novel techniques for chest wall reconstruction. His cancer research interests include paediatric solid tumours with particular reference to liquid biopsies for the detection of minimal residual disease in paediatric solid tumours, monitoring genetic and disease progression and surgical reconstruction and imaging of tumours to assist in cancer surgery. His thoracic surgical research focuses on chest wall reconstruction and long term follow up of oesophageal atresia and diaphragmatic hernias. Prof Karpelowsky is also the Principal investigator on a number of clinical trials focusing on common paediatric surgical conditions including central venous access, biliary atresia, appendicitis and pyloric stenosis.
Associate Professor Geoffrey Oxnard, MD
Boston Medical Center and Boston University, Boston, USA
Dr. Geoffrey R Oxnard, MD, is a thoracic oncologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC), internationally recognised for both his clinical expertise in lung cancer and for his pioneering work on the use of liquid biopsies to guide the selection of targeted therapies. Dr. Geoff Oxnard was previously Senior Vice President, Head of Clinical Development / Global Medical Lead, Liquid Portfolio at Foundation Medicine. In this role, Geoff led the - clinical development of FMI products to maximize their impact on precision cancer care and drug development - demonstrating the clinical utility of the Liquid Franchise products. Prior to joining Foundation Medicine, Dr. Oxnard was a thoracic oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago School of Medicine, received his medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and performed oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was a clinic-based translational investigator whose research included studies of targeted therapies for genotype-defined NSCLC populations, noninvasive plasma genotyping technologies, and familial lung cancer due to germline EGFR mutations. He received grant funding from the National Cancer Institute, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO, and the US Department of Defense. He has given oral presentations on his research at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, and the World Conference on Lung Cancer.
International & National Invited Speakers
Associate Professor Hyun Woo (Henry) Park, PhD
College of Life Science & Biotechnology, Yonsei University, South Korea
Head Translational Cancer Research Lab, Vice Dean, College of Life Science & Biotechnology, Director, AST Metastasis Research Center, SUHF Fellow. Hyun Woo Park is currently the leader of Translational Cancer Research Laboratory at Yonsei University and the Director of AST Metastasis Research Center funded by the National Grand Challenges Initiative. Dr. Park earned his degree in 2010 from Department of Pharmacology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, and continued his postdoctoral fellowship at UCSD Moorse Cancer Center in molecular cancer biology, where he studied oncogenic signaling networks including the mechanisms of Hippo, Wnt, and autophagy in cancer progression and metastasis. Upon becoming an independent researcher, Dr. Park pioneered a novel concept in cell biology referred to as Adherent-to-Suspension Transition (AST). This innovative paradigm outlines the role of hematopoietic transcription factors in metastasis, explaining how they reprogram the anchorage dependency of solid tumor cells to enable transformation into circulating tumor cells (CTCs). In his current research, Dr. Park is focused on the development of next generation anti-metastatic strategies that target the AST factors in CTCs. Additionally, he is exploring therapeutic strategies that tackle dysregulated cancer metabolism. This involves integrating non-oncology drugs and dietary interventions in both human and transgenic animal models.
Dr Sandra Fitzgerald, PhD
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Sandra is a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. Her PhD was completed in 2021 and focused on developing affordable,rapid and sensitive tests for monitoring ctDNA in cancer patients undergoing treatment. Her post-doctoral research is focused on developing liquid biopsy tools for early lung cancer detection and the detection of clinically actionable targets in non-small cell lung cancer patients who cannot have a lung biopsy. In addition to her research studies, Sandra assisted with COVID testing at the University of Auckland and Auckland City Hospital. Sandra hopes that the expertise achieved in a clinical diagnostic laboratory as a Medical Laboratory Scientist can be utilised to translate minimally invasive liquid biopsy technologies into clinical implementation.
Associate Professor Aniruddha Chatterjee, PhD
Department of Pathology, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, New Zealand
Associate Professor Aniruddha Chatterjee is a cancer epigenetics researcher and a Rutherford Discovery Fellow (Royal Society of New Zealand). Aniruddha completed his PhD in 2013 and he has led to the development of some of the first analytical pipelines for large-scale DNA methylation analysis and his work revealed the existence of widespread inter-individual epigenetic variation in human blood cells. His subsequent work identified aberrant epigenetic and gene expression patterns, revealed their role in many tumour types and has identified new epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in cancer cell. His work resulted in 89 publications so far. His lab combines experimental and computational approaches and uses next-generation sequencing, computational analysis, and experimental work to decipher the role of epigenetic modification, focusing on DNA methylation in disease, particularly in cancer. The main aim of the lab is to identify epigenetic changes and signatures of cancer to understand function and that can be used for early detection of cancer and can also be employed to predict and prevent disease. Lab URL: https://www.otago.ac.nz/chatterjee-lab/index.html Lab FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/chatterjeelabnz/
Dr Rachel Delahunty, MD, PhD
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre & The Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne, VIC
Rachel Delahunty is a medical oncologist at The Mercy Hospital for Women, The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Geelong University Hospital. She has a special interest in gynaecological oncology and translational research. Rachel was recently awarded her PhD through the University of Melbourne and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre titled ‘Reducing the morbidity and mortality of ovarian cancer through prevention which included leading the novel ovarian cancer prevention project ‘TRACEBACK
Associate Professor Alexander Dobrovic, PhD
Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, VIC
Alex is the scientific head of the Beacon Biomarkers Lab at the Melbourne University Department of Surgery at the Austin hospital. His work centres on developing optimal approaches for the analysis of samples from cancer and transplantation patients to enable implementation of precision medicine. He has expertise in detecting and quantifying mutations and methylation, particularly at low levels, focussing on diagnostics based on plasma DNA. This is facilitated by direct access to forefront methodologies like digital PCR. His lab has a strong track record both in self-initiated and collaborative research with over 200 publications
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Dr Marion Mateos, BSc (Med), MBBS (Hons), DCH, PhD, FRACP
Kid Cancer Centre, Sydney, NSW
Marion K Mateos is an early career clinician researcher and paediatric oncologist, with appointments at Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick and the University of New South Wales. Dr Mateos’ clinical practice focuses on treatment of childhood brain tumours and leukaemia. Her research focuses on improving outcomes in childhood cancer, clinical trial development for high-risk childhood cancer, biomarker development and application of liquid biopsy in collaboration with colleagues at Children’s Cancer Institute, as well as research aimed at reducing treatment-related toxicities. Dr Mateos was recently interviewed by Channel 7 news and Radio 2SM in relation to her co-lead role in a world-first clinical trial in high-risk brain cancer in children (ACTRN12623000104651 Deflexifol at Relapse Trial). Despite only 2.4 years full-time research equivalent post PhD, she has published 18 peer-reviewed papers and has attracted >$8M as a named investigator from external funding sources.
Dr Xi Zhang, PhD
Griffith University, QLD
Xi Zhang undertook a PhD in biomedical science at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, School of Biomedical Science, Queensland University of Technology. During his PhD Xi Zhang published his work on salivary HF biomarker discovery in multiple high impact Q1 journals. XI Zhang is now an early career researcher working at the Saliva and Liquid Biopsy Research Team, Griffith University. His major research interest involves using novel proteomics methods to identify novel biomarkers for systemic and local diseases. Xi Zhang has expertise in immunoassay, mass spectrometry, molecular biology and general chemistry. Xi Zhang is also proficient in statistical analysis using various platforms. Xi Zhang is a chief investigator on a currently funded NHMRC Idea Grant (APP 2002576). Xi Zhang is currently investigating the prognostic utility of Circulating tumour cells in head and neck cancer.
Dr Arron Beasley, PhD
School of Medical & Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, WA
Aaron Beasley is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Centre for Precision Health, within the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University. His current research aims to utilise blood based liquid biopsies, through biomarkers such as circulating tumour cells, cell-free DNA, and circulating tumour DNA to predict prognosis and treatment response in uveal/cutaneous melanoma and non-small-cell lung cancer.