Leveraging phenomenal talent, infrastructure and experience, The Brain Cancer Centre has committed over $30 million to fund highly impactful, collaborative research projects and clinical trials.
Bringing together the best medical research minds from around Australia and the world.
This is just the beginning.
Our research ecosystem represents where we believe are our best research investments will be made now and in the future.
These areas have been strategically positioned to take advantage of both areas of specialty and potential gaps within the Australian research and clinical trials landscape.
Prof Misty Jenkins is a NHMRC fellow and laboratory head at WEHI. Misty leads the immunotherapy program within The Brain Cancer Centre. She is dedicated to discovering novel immunotherapy targets for high grade gliomas in adults and children. Her research focusses on the development of novel chimeric antigen receptor T cells for brain cancer. Her group also uses cutting edge two-photon microscopy combined with mouse models of brain cancer to investigate the tumour microenvironment and uncover unique biology of brain tumours.
Misty has a PhD in Immunology from The University of Melbourne, followed by postdoctoral positions at The Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
Prof Jenkins was awarded the L’Oreal for Women in Science Fellowship (2013), was Tall Poppy of the year (2015), was awarded the Top100 Women of Influence award (2016) and was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2020.
Misty co-chairs a Federal Health Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and is a passionate advocate for gender equity and Indigenous Health and education. She was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2023 for distinguished service to medical science in Immunology, the support of women in STEM, and to the Indigenous community.
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Professor Misty Jenkins AO
WEHI
Jim is a medical oncologist specialising in neuro-oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He completed his PhD and was awarded the “Professor Lynn Corcoran PhD Prize” for his research understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for resistance to cell death in breast cancer. This work has provided the foundation for testing novel compounds in early phase clinical trials, together with industry collaboration.
In 2020, Jim commenced working remotely with the Ligon laboratory, Dana Faber Cancer Institute, with a focus on uncovering resistance mechanisms to glioma. Jim is passionate about improving supportive care for patients and carers with brain cancer. Together with Prof Kate Drummond, he co-leads an MRFF funded program to develop an online supportive care platform.
Dr Whittle & Prof Drummond have recently launched a world-first clinical trial Brain Pop, funded through The BCC, which will enable doctors to precisely see the effect of a new drug therapy on a patient’s brain cancer for the first time.
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Dr Jim Whittle
Peter MacCallum Centre & WEHI
Sarah is a cancer biologist with a strong focus on genetics and the development of personalised therapeutic strategies. Sarah’s research experience has spanned the breast, skin and lung, where she has made major advances in the understanding of tumour development, progression and biomarkers of disease. For her research investigating the metabolite biomarkers of lung cancer, Sarah was awarded the Research Australia Discovery Award in 2018.
Sarah’s research focus leverages fundamental biology, metabolic properties and the immune microenvironment to develop a deeper understanding of cancer.
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Dr Sarah Best
WEHI
Professor Kate Drummond, AM, MD, FRACS is Director of Neurosurgery at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Head of CNS Tumours at the VCCC Parkville Precinct. Her research and clinical interests are in the biology and management of brain tumours, with special interests in advanced surgical techniques such as awake craniotomy, quality of life and blood and imaging biomarkers. She has published over 190 peer-reviewed papers and many book chapters and has received more than $35 million in research funding. Her h-index is 43. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgery. She has served as Chief Examiner in Neurosurgery, Chair of the Women in Surgery Committee and on the Neurosurgery Surgical Education and Training Board for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, being awarded the RACS medal for these services. She is the President of the Asian Australasian Society of Neurosurgeons. She is a strong advocate for and has written and presented widely on diversity in neurosurgery. She is Chair of Pangea Global Health Education, a for-impact organisation specialising in health education in low resource settings. In 2019 she was awarded Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to medicine, particularly in neuro-oncology and community health.
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Professor Kate Drummond AM
The Royal Melbourne Hospital
Raelene was awarded her PhD in 2003 from the Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research (under the supervision of Peter Klinken), undertook postdoctoral training in the Neurobiology and Brain Tumor Program at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA (under the supervision of Suzanne Baker), and was awarded a Fellowship in 2011 to return to Australia to establish the Brain Tumour Research Program at the Telethon Kids Institute which she co-leads with Nick Gottardo. This collaborative group of clinicians, neurosurgeons and laboratory scientists uses a suite of in vivo models to understand the effects of paediatric brain tumour mutations on normal brain development and tumorigenesis. Her team also investigates potential therapeutic targets and uses in vivo model systems to evaluate novel treatments prior to clinical trial.
Raelene is a passionate advocate for science and actively encourages young scientists to get involved in medical research. She has mentored high school students, undergrads, Honours, Masters and PhD students in her lab. Raelene has also chaired the Telethon Kids Institute Postdoctoral Council and been on the executive committee for the Australian Academy of Science Early-Mid Career Researchers Forum.
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Associate Professor Raelene Endersby
Telethon Kids Institute
Saskia is a bioinformatician focusing on the development and application of innovative approaches and technologies to advance our understanding of the brain in health and disease. Saskia has been instrumental in the discovery of pathogenic variants for several neurological diseases. For her innovative research approach, she was awarded the Harry Perkins Aspire Award in 2020.
Additionally, Saskia in her role as an Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) ChooseMaths ambassador passionately advocates for STEM education and actively encourages girls to pursue higher education in mathematics.
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Dr Saskia Freytag
WEHI
Dr Lucy Gately is a medical oncologist at the Alfred Hospital where she is Head of Neuro-Oncology, Cancer Genetics and Clinical Innovation. She is also a clinician researcher in The Brain Cancer Centre as part of the Personalised Oncology Division where she leads a program of research focussed on clinical data and research infrastructure. Lucy is passionate about improving the lives of patients with brain cancer and was awarded a PhD in brain cancer survivorship from the University of Melbourne. The intersection of her research and clinical work provides continued meaning in the battle against brain cancer.
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Dr Lucy Gately
WEHI
Prof Nick Gottardo is Co-Head of the Institute’s Brain Tumour Research Team and a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist/Neuro-Oncologist and Head of Department of Paediatric Oncology and Haematology at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children. Prof Gottardo is also an Adjunct Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Western Australia and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP).
Prof Gottardo is driven by his belief that it’s unacceptable for children to die from brain tumours. His research interests include developing laboratory models of brain tumours, testing new therapies using these models and identifying areas of weaknesses in the tumours that might be suitable drug targets.
Prof Gottardo’s medical career began at Leeds University with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery/Chirurgery. He worked for two and a half years as a doctor in the UK, before heading to Australia in 1996, where he took up a position at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and began a PhD at Telethon Kids. After completing his PhD, Prof Gottardo headed to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA, one of the world’s premier childhood cancer institutes. He spent three years at St Jude as a post-doctoral brain tumour fellow and gained extensive experience in the laboratory in brain tumour model generation, preclinical testing and brain cancer cell biology, as well as expertise in the management of children with brain tumours in the clinic. In 2008 he received the International Symposium Paediatric Neuro-Oncology (ISPNO) Young Investigator award for scientific excellence. Dr Gottardo returned to Perth Australia in 2008 as a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist/Neuro-Oncologist and established the Brain Tumour Research Programme at the Telethon Kids Institute. In 2012 he was awarded the Raine Clinician Research Fellowship and in 2016 the Cancer Council Western Australia Research Fellowship.
In his clinical capacity Prof Gottardo is the Deputy Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group (ANZCHOG) and Chair of their Central Nervous System (CNS)Tumours Subgroup, and a Board member of the Australian Children’s Cancer Therapy (ACCT) group. He is also a member of the international North American based Children’s Oncology Group (COG) CNS Tumour Committee and leads the COG’s upfront clinical trial for patients with WNT-driven medulloblastoma. He collaborates extensively both nationally and internationally; he is a founding member of the Brain Cancer Discovery Collaborative (BCDC) – a collaborative network consisting of the best brain cancer scientists and clinicians across Australia and a member of the International Medulloblastoma Working Group.
Professor Nick Gottardo
Telethon Kids Institute
Professor Guillaume Lessene trained as an organic chemist, completing his PhD at the University of Bordeaux, before undertaking postdoctoral work with Professor Feldman at Pennsylvania State University.
Since moving to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in 2001, his major research focus has been the development of small molecules that target apoptotic and necroptotic cell death pathways.
Since January 2019, Professor Lessene heads the New Medicines and Advanced Technologies Theme at the Institute. This multidisciplinary research theme comprises of basic research driven by structural and chemical biology, translation of basic discoveries into new medicines together with clinical research, and cutting-edge technologies.
Professor Lessene’s work targeting the BCL-2 family of proteins for cancer therapy formed the basis of a major collaboration between the Institute and two pharmaceutical companies, Genentech and AbbVie, leading to the development of venetoclax, the first BH3-mimetic approved by the US Federal Drug Agency (FDA) for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).
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Professor Guillaume Lessene
WEHI
Professor Mark Rosenthal trained as a Medical Oncologist in Melbourne, Sydney, and New York. He received a Doctor of Philosophy at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (1992-1996). He was Professor Director of the Department of Medical Oncology and Clinical Haematology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital from 2006-2016; Chair and Chief Medical Officer of Cancer Trials Australia (2006-2016); inaugural Chair of the Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (2007-2017) and was the Clinical Trials Lead for the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (2016-20).
Professor Rosenthal is currently a Senior Staff Specialist in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Director of the Parkville Cancer Clinical Trials Unit. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has been awarded over $40 million in research grants. His major interests are neuro-oncology and clinical trials.
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Professor Mark Rosenthal
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre & The Royal Melbourne Hospital
Prof Strasser is NHMRC L3 Investigator, Professor of University of Melbourne, elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Academy of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), and Foreign Member of EMBO. He heads WEHI’s Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, a major world centre for research on cell death and cancer. His pioneering research on BCL-2 established that deregulation of cell death is a prime contributor to cancer and autoimmune disease and that defects in apoptosis render cancer cells resistant to many therapeutic agents. Andreas is a world expert on the role of p53, the BCL-2 protein family and other oncogenes as well as tumour suppressor genes in tumour development. He established that there are two distinct signalling pathways leading to cell death, one triggered by ligation of cell surface “death receptors” and the other by cytokine deprivation or other stresses. Andreas was also the first to demonstrate that BH3-only proteins, a pro-apoptotic sub-group of the BCL-2 protein family, are essential for cytotoxic agents to initiate apoptosis signalling. These discoveries have major biological implications and suggest novel therapeutic strategies for autoimmunity, cancer and degenerative diseases. His discovery of the functions of the BH3-only proteins has directly underpinned the development (collaboration between WEHI, Gennetech and AbbVie) of BH3 mimetic drugs for cancer therapy, with the BCL-2 inhibitor Venetoclax having benefited already several tens of thousands of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) or acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
Professor Andreas Strasser
WEHI
Brandon Wainwright is the Director of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre at the University of Queensland Frazer Institute. The Wainwright laboratory discovered the first gene that was known to directly cause brain cancers in either adults or children. Since that time they have focused on understanding how paediatric brain tumours not only grow but rapidly escape conventional therapy. Some of their discoveries have resulted in current clinical trials. Current approaches being used by the Wainwright laboratory include the manipulation of the immune system in combination with novel small molecule therapy to treat a range of malignant paediatric brain tumours.
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Professor Brandon Wainwright
The University of Queensland
Laboratory Heads – Dr Sarah Best, Dr Jim Whittle & Dr Saskia Freytag
Professor Kate Drummond
Dr Lucy Gately
Publishing research papers is the way in which incredibly talented researchers share knowledge and discoveries with the world that takes their chosen field forward.
The Brain Cancer Centre’s collaborative research approach brings together the brightest minds to make game changing discoveries to improve the lives of brain cancer patients.
Here are the recent publications from our Brain Cancer Centre members – helping us to achieve our vision: That one day no lives will be lost to brain cancer.
EphA3-targeted chimeric antigen receptor T cells are effective in glioma and generate curative memory T cell responses
B Lertsumitkul L, Iliopoulos M, Wang SS, et al
