Translational Breast Cancer Genomics Research Group

With more than 20,000 new diagnoses annually, breast cancer affects the lives of many Australians.

The focus of research by the group is on understanding the drivers of breast cancer development, to discover new ways to better guide and individualize treatment.

Breast cancer is a very heterogeneous disease. Tailoring treatment so that it is the right choice for every patient is critical.

A key aim of our work is to develop new precision prognostic approaches that can be applied in the clinic, so that we can reduce the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis for women and their families and loved ones.

Recent Achievements

Development of the PROSPER test for prognostication of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer

Accurate prediction of likely risk of recurrence is critical for clinical planning in breast cancer. Precision medicine tests are commercially available and are superior to traditional approaches for guiding treatment. However, they come at a high cost which puts them out of reach of many Australian patients. We discovered a predictive signature that performs better than existing precision tools in prognosticating breast cancer. We have now translated the test to an affordable format that can be easily applied in the clinical setting. This achievement puts us on track to roll out the test for availability to all Australian patients. We are working with an innovative biotechnology team to translate the test to commercial availability and hope to offer it to patients at a fraction of the cost of the commercial alternatives.

 

Mapping the transition from in situ to invasive breast cancer using high dimensional spatial profiling

The advent of mammographic screening resulted in a 10-fold increase in the detection of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which is the non-invasive precursor to invasive breast cancer. DCIS has an excellent prognosis in most cases, and many would not become invasive within the lifetime of the patient. But all are treated to eliminate the few that could have progressed. Evidence suggested the normal cells in the DCIS tissue could provide insight into its likely progression. We used novel multiplexed protein profiling approaches to accurately map the cell types present and their relative positioning in a cohort of DCIS cases. We found that there were striking changes to the type, location and population size of virtually all cell types in DCIS as it progressed towards invasive progression. We hope to use these findings to develop advanced approaches to predicting invasion from cases of DCIS. This could allow some patients to avoid unnecessary treatments and others to be alerted to the risks their cancer could progress.

Recent publications

Impact of the EndoPredict genomic assay on treatment decisions for oestrogen receptor-positive early breast cancer patients: benefits of physician selective testing

December 2021

A tumour suppressive relationship between mineralocorticoid and retinoic acid receptors activates a transcriptional program consistent with a reverse Warburg effect in breast cancer.

November 2020

Group Members

Tram Doan – Research Fellow Bioinformatician
Nirmala Pathmanathan – MPhil student
Barb Guild – Research Officer
Twingle Daniel – PhD student
Farhana Mollah – PhD student
Rafia Ali – PhD student

SUPPORT US

With your support, we can continue to explore groundbreaking research and improved health outcomes for people everywhere.

our story