Biography
Gail gained her PhD at Monash University. As head of an internationally recognised research team of scientists and clinicians working on prostate cancer and andrology-related projects, she’s one of Australia’s leading prostate cancer researchers, with particular interest in the biology of stromal-epithelial cell interactions in normal and tumour tissue using tissue recombination, animal and human specimens. She pioneered the use of stem cells for recombination studies combining stem cell biology with endocrinology.
She’s a distinguished professor at Monash University and Sir Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Her multidisciplinary program is centred on using patient specimens to improve translation of research discoveries to the clinic.
Summary of Talk
Preclinical models are commonly used to inform clinical trial design in the discovery and development of targets for cancer. Although the heterogeneity of real tumours is critical for guiding patient selection, it is frequently limited in models. Using our collection of prostatic tumours (the MURAL collection) we show how two FDA-approved medicines, Lu PSMA radiotherapy and CART celll immunotherapy, can improve treatment efficacy and even reduce undesirable side effects.