National Speakers

Associate Professor Joseph (Sefi) Rosenbluh

Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA) Mid-career Research Fellow 

Head, Cancer Functional Genomics Lab

Biomedicine Discovery Institute

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Monash University

Joseph (Sefi) Rosenbluh is a Victoria mid-career cancer research fellow. He has made major contributions in functional cancer genomics and our understanding of cancer dependencies and variants that are associated with cancer risk. After completing his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel he moved to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT as a postdoctoral fellow and later as an instructor of medicine. In 2017 Sefi joined the faculty of Monash University. In addition to heading a research lab he directs the Monash Functional Genomics Platform.

His early work used CRISPR, RNAi and ORF screens to identify genes associated with cancer phenotypes (Cell 2012, Cell 2012, Cell 2014, Nature Communication 2017, Cell Systems 2016, Nature Biotechnology 2016, Nature Cell Biology 2024). In recent years his lab has developed tools for identification of alternative transcripts that mediate cancer phenotypes (Genome Biology 2021), as well as for identification of genes associated with increased cancer risk (Genome Biology 2023). His work on developing and screening variant libraries is making an important contribution to our understanding of variants and how they are associated with disease outcomes

Dr Edmond Kwan

Genitourinary Cancer Medical Oncologist, Eastern Health

Lab Head & Senior Research Fellow

Eastern Health Clinical School and Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University

Dr Edmond Kwan is a clinician-scientist and consultant medical oncologist at Eastern Health in Melbourne. He is currently serving as Laboratory Head and Senior Research Fellow at the Eastern Health Clinical School, with a cross-appointment at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

After completing his specialist clinical training, Dr Kwan received an NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship to support his doctoral research investigating whole blood RNA to characterise aggressive molecular subtypes in prostate cancer. Following his PhD, he relocated to Canada for a postdoctoral fellowship at BC Cancer and the Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia. His postdoctoral research primarily centred on developing tissue and circulating tumour DNA biomarkers for predicting treatment outcomes in lethal metastatic prostate cancer. Beyond the laboratory, Dr Kwan has maintained strong links to patient care, serving as a Principal Investigator on early and late-phase clinical trials in prostate, bladder, and kidney cancer.  By combining expertise in cancer genomics and clinical oncology, his research team strives to understand how genomic and epigenomic alterations identified in tumour tissue and blood can better guide therapeutic decision-making in patients with urological cancers.

Professor Lisa Butler

Program Lead and Group Leader in the South Australian Immunogenomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI), University of Adelaide

Director of the Solid Tumour Program at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI)

Professor Lisa Butler is a Program Lead and Group Leader in the South Australian Immunogenomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI), at the University of Adelaide. She holds a Ph.D. in cancer biology from the University of Adelaide with postdoctoral training in preclinical drug development at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. Prof Butler’s research focuses on androgen signalling and lipid metabolism in prostate cancer, and on biomarker discovery coupled to drug development. She has established translational research programs that leverage her unique preclinical models involving primary clinical samples, prostate biobanking and proof-of-concept clinical trials. 

Professor Thomas R. Cox

Laboratory Head – Matrix and Metastasis, Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Professor (Conjoint), School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Sydney

Professor Thomas Cox is a cancer cell biologist specialising in extracellular matrix and matrix remodelling in solid tumours. After completing his PhD from Durham University (2008), he held PostDoctoral positions at the Institute of Cancer Research, London and Copenhagen University's Biotech Research & Innovation Centre. Since 2016, he has led the Matrix and Metastasis Lab at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and The Kinghorn Cancer Centre.

His research combines matrix biology with precision oncology, focusing on understanding and targeting the matrix in cancer. His lab develops new matrix-targeted approaches and evaluates their effectiveness in pre-clinical cancer models (breast, pancreatic, lung, bowel) to personalise anti-cancer treatments. 

Associate Professor Anne Fletcher

Head, Stromal Immunology Laboratory

Graduate Research Coordinator

Biomedicine Discovery Institute

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Monash University

Associate Professor Anne Fletcher is the head of the Stromal Immunology Laboratory at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. The laboratory specialises in human fibroblast cross-talk and differentiation within tumour and lymph node microenvironments, with an interest in developing new drugs that target immune-suppressing fibroblasts. Anne completed her PhD at Monash University, before undertaking an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School, followed by a Birmingham Fellowship at the University of Birmingham (UK). In 2018, Anne returned to Monash. She co-founded the Stromal Immunology Network of Australia and New Zealand, and is Chairing an upcoming Keystone meeting, "Stromal Immunology in Health and Disease" (February 2026, Banff). Anne is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Phenomic AI (Canada).  

Associate Professor Kristin Brown

Group Leader, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Principal Research Fellow, University of Melbourne

Following postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School, A/Prof Kristin Brown relocated to Australia in 2016 to establish her independent research laboratory. She currently co-heads the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Program and heads a laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne. Her research team employs a variety of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology techniques to investigate the fundamental mechanisms contributing to the regulation of cellular metabolism, and the impact of aberrant cellular metabolism on tumour initiation and progression. This knowledge is applied to the pre-clinical development of novel and more effective interventions for cancer therapy. Research from the Brown lab has been published in high impact journals including Cancer Discovery, Developmental Cell and PNAS and has been supported by funding from the NHMRC, the Victorian Cancer Agency and Susan G Komen.

Professor Gail P. Risbridger AM, FAAHMS

Co-Lead Prostate Cancer Research Program,

Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute

Chair, Melbourne Urological Research Alliance 

ARC Centre, Cell & Tissue Engineering Technologies,

PI & Member Leadership Team 

Professor Gail Risbridger is a Distinguished Professor at Monash University, Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

She is one of Australia's leading authorities in prostate cancer and men's health and her multidisciplinary program is centred on using patient specimens to translate research discoveries to the clinic. She established one of the world’s largest cohorts of prostate cancer PDX’s to underpin research discoveries and their translation. This is a significant advance for a field hampered for decades by a paucity of models to generate and translate new knowledge.

With over 300 publications in elite journals her distinguished professorial achievements have resulted in Awards that include Australia Day Honour, Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, 4 renewals of NHMRC Research Fellowships, Lifetime achievement & Senior Plenary Awards. She is an elected Lifetime Member of the Endocrine Society of Australia, a Fellow of Society of Reproductive Biology and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences because of her record of world-class achievement in research, research translation expertise, vision, supervision and mentoring.

Associate Professor Liz Caldon

Laboratory Head, Replication and Genome Stability Group

Garvan Institute of Medical Research

UNSW Sydney

Associate Professor Liz Caldon heads the Replication and Genome Stability Group at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. Liz completed an MSc at University of Toronto, and PhD at UNSW Sydney. She is currently the AGCF (Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation) Fellow, and supported by the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Liz’s team investigates how breast and ovarian cancers develop resistance to standard of care therapies. Of particular interest to the group is how cancer cells treated with cytostatic therapies can co-opt different biological pathways to survive and metastasise. Liz’s work aims to apply insights from cancer biology to develop new therapeutic targets that can improve clinical outcomes 

Professor Phil Darcy

Co-head of Cancer Immunology program and Group Leader of Cancer Immunotherapy Lab

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre 

Professor Phil Darcy is currently a Group Leader and Head of the Cancer Immunology Faculty at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He received an honorary appointment in 2018 as Professor at the University of Melbourne, Dept of Clinical Pathology. He was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council L3 Investigator Fellowship in 2024 and received a Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2022. His work has focused on developing CAR T cell therapy for cancer in preclinical mouse models and translating this into patients. He led the first CAR T cell trial in Australia in 2013 at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in patients with acute myeloid leukaemi. More recently his studies have involved using new gene editing technologies to enhance CAR T cell efficacy. He has published his work in premier scientific journals including a recent paper in Nature (2024). 

Professor Vicki Whitehall

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, QLD

Prof Whitehall has researched the molecular basis of colorectal cancer for the past 25 years. After completing postdoctoral studies at the Kimmel Cancer Centre, Philadelphia, she returned to QIMR Berghofer in 2005. She has held national fellowships (NHMRC, GESA) and leadership positions including for the Australian Gastrointestinal Cancer Trials Group (Translational Research Committee, Chair) and the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (Research Committee, Co-Chair). Together with clinical collaborators in gastroenterology, oncology and pathology, she has contributed many conceptual advances that have translated into improved patient management. Career highlights have been contributions to discoveries impacting clinical practice, including establishing the malignant potential of a subtype of colorectal polyp that precedes >20% of all colorectal cancers, and facilitating clinical introduction of RAS mutation testing as the first biomarker for determining choice of therapy for advanced colorectal cancer. Prof Whitehall’s current research focus is on understanding molecular drivers of colorectal cancer subtypes, developing new immuno-oncology approaches, and predictive drug testing using patient derived organoids. Her overarching goal is to progress personalised medicine strategies to inform therapeutic decisions and improve patient outcomes. 

Associate Professor Vivek Naranbhai

Lab Head: Laboratory of Translational Immunology

Consultant Oncologist: The Alfred Hospital

Member: CCeMMP

I am an Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Translational Immunology, and a medical oncologist at Alfred Hospital. I am known internationally for my contributions to immunology and oncology. My h-index is 41, FWCI 11.76 and I have influenced global guidelines and been features in major international press (eg NYTimes, LATimes, Boston Globe). My career began with medical training at the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, where I also completed honors in medical microbiology and a Fogarty Fellowship at the Centre for AIDS Program of Research. This led to a PhD in virology under Profs. Salim Abdool Karim. I further pursued a DPhil (awarded 2016)  in clinical medicine as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, working with Profs. Adrian Hill, Helen McShane, and Andrew Morris. Following my time at Oxford, I joined the National Cancer Institute and the Ragon Institute to research immunogenetics with Prof. Mary Carrington. As a clinician-scientist, I completed training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, later serving as an attending physician and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In 2023, I was recruited by Monash University to establish the Laboratory of Translational Immunology. Here, I apply my extensive global network to discover novel immunobiology for developing new treatments in infectious diseases, cancer, and immune-related disorders. With over 100 publications in leading journals like Cell and Science, my work includes key discoveries in inflammation, cancer immunotherapy, and COVID-19 sero-epidemiology.

Professor Melissa C. Southey OAM

Chair of Precision Medicine

Co-Director, Monash Partners Comprehensive Cancer Consortium

Director, Biobanking Victoria

NHMRC L3 Investigator Fellow

Precision Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, VIC

Cancer Epidemiology Division, Cancer Council Victoria, East Melbourne, VIC

Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, VIC

Distinguished Professor Melissa Southey, BSc (Hons, Pathology), PhD (Medicine), GradDip (Law), is a Molecular Geneticist (FHGSA), a Founding Fellow of the Faculty of Science, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FFSc, RCPA) and a NHMRC L3 Investigator Fellow.

Professor Southey’s research program has a population-based focus that has been pivotal to the establishment of large genetic epidemiological research resources that are now being utilized to address key questions in human health and disease.  Melissa is best known for her work with multiple-case cancer families and heritable risk factors that has provided the evidence base for best practice guidelines for the clinical management of individuals at high risk of the disease.

Professor Southey has led multidisciplinary teams in diagnostic and research settings in Australia and internationally, supported by programmatic awards from the European Commission, the National Institutes of Health (USA), NHMRC and The National Breast Cancer Foundation totalling over 30M in the last 5 years. She has co-authored more than 700 peer reviewed publications and was named by Clarivate in 2018 as a Highly Cited Researcher.  She actively participates on a number of national and international scientific advisory, governance and editorial bodies.

Associate Professor Ross Dickins

Lab Head, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases

Monash University

The laboratory of A/Prof Ross Dickins at Monash University uses genetic technologies and mouse models to investigate novel therapeutic strategies for acute leukaemia. His lab also develops biologics to modulate T cell checkpoints in autoimmunity and cancer. In 2022 he co-founded Monash spinout company FLEX Immunotherapeutics.

Associate Professor Fatima Valdes Mora

Group Leader – Cancer Epigenetic Biology and Therapeutics

Post-Graduate Coordinator for UNSW Centre for Childhood Cancer Research

Theme Head – Therapeutic Discovery

Children's Cancer Institute

Lowy Cancer Research Centre, UNSW Australia 

Associate Professor Fatima Valdes Mora is a cancer researcher with more than 15 years of experience, possessing a strong multidisciplinary profile in cancer epigenetics, cancer immuno-oncology, and bioinformatics.

Valdes Mora completed her PhD in December 2008 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She undertook postdoctoral training from 2009 to 2013 in Professor Susan Clark’s lab at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, Australia, focusing on epigenetics in adult cancer. In 2014, she was promoted to Group Leader, a semi-independent position at the Garvan Institute, where she concentrated her research on the epigenetics of breast and prostate cancer.

In 2020, Valdes Mora joined the Children’s Cancer Institute (CCI) as Group Leader of the Cancer Epigenetic Biology and Therapeutics Group, expanding her research into paediatric cancer epigenetics. In 2024, she assumed additional leadership roles within CCI and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), including Head of the Therapeutic Discovery Theme and Postgraduate Coordinator for the Childhood Cancer PhD program. 

Dr Lisa Mielke

Head of the Mucosal Immunity and Cancer Laboratory at

the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute

Cancer Program Co-Lead for the La Trobe Institute of

Molecular Sciences, La Trobe University

Dr Lisa Mielke is Head of the Mucosal Immunity and Cancer Laboratory at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute.  She is a Cancer Program Lead for the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Sciences, La Trobe University.

Dr Mielke is an expert in immune cell function of the gastrointestinal tract. She has led numerous studies revealing new interactions between our diet and transcriptional regulation of intestinal immune cells. These studies opened an exciting frontier of research in the field of mucosal immunology that underpin her current work on T cells and their potential as immunotherapy targets in colorectal cancer.

Dr Omer Gilan

Group leader at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases,

School of Translational Medicine

Dr Omer Gilan is a group leader in the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, School of Translational Medicine at Monash University. He completed his PhD studies at the Bio21 institute, University of Melbourne and postdoctoral training at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (leukaemia foundation fellowship and mid-career VCA fellowship) with Prof. Mark Dawson. He has expertise in epigenetic regulation, targeted therapies and blood cancers and have made major contributions to these areas, which include dissecting the mechanisms of combination epigenetic therapies in acute leukaemia (Gilan et al. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 2016), delineating the selective functions of the BET proteins in cancer and inflammation (Gilan et al. Science 2020) and developing a novel CRISPR-screening method to uncover mechanisms of chromatin regulation (Gilan et al. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 2023). He currently holds an EL2 investigator grant, and Ideas grant from NHMRC.  His lab is interested in understanding the unique ways in which chromatin regulation influences fundamental cellular processes as well as therapeutic efficacy and resistance in cancer.  

Professor Juliet French

Program Director, Cancer Research

NHMRC Leadership (L1) Fellow

Senior Group Leader, Functional Genetics Laboratory

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute

Professor Juliet French is the Program Director of Cancer Research and Head of the Functional Genetics Laboratory at QIMR Berghofer. She completed her PhD in 2003 at the Institute of Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland and continued her post-doctoral studies in the School of Molecular Biosciences.  In 2013, she moved to QIMR Berghofer as a Team Head, was promoted to Group Leader in 2018 and Senior Group Leader in 2023.  She has been awarded several NHMRC and NBCF grants including a NHMRC Leadership (L1) grant also in 2023. Her research is aimed at understanding how genetic variants in non-coding regions of the genome influence cancer risk and progression. She has published leader author papers in highly prestigious journals including Nature Genetics, Molecular Cancer, Genome Biology, Nucleic Acids Research and the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Professor Jeff Holst

Lab Head, Translational Cancer Metabolism Laboratory

School of Biomedical Sciences, UNSW Sydney

Professor Jeff Holst leads the Translational Cancer Metabolism Laboratory and is Director of Engagement in the School of Biomedical Sciences at UNSW Sydney. Jeff completed his PhD in 2003 at St Vincent’s Hospital/UNSW Sydney and undertook postdoctoral studies at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis TN in immunology. He returned to Australia in 2006, starting a lab at the Centenary Institute focussing on the role of nutrient metabolism in cancer. In 2018, he was recruited to UNSW Sydney where he continues to study new ways to target metabolic pathways in melanoma, glioblastoma, breast and prostate cancer. His research examines the basic biology regulating nutrient uptake and downstream metabolism in cancer, developing physiological cancer models, as well as developing new therapeutic strategies to target metabolic pathways.

Professor Jyotsna Batra

Deputy Program Leader, Cancer Program,

Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, 

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia 

Professor Jyotsna Batra is an internationally recognised biomedical scientist with over 20 years of experience in human genetics and molecular biology. Her research focuses on understanding the genetic basis of complex diseases, particularly prostate cancer, and identifying biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response. She completed her PhD in Biotechnology at the University of Pune, India, with an exceptional publication record and significant contributions to the Indian Genome Variation Consortium.

Since moving to Australia, she has held several prestigious fellowships, including the NHMRC Peter Doherty and Career Development Fellowships, MTPConnect REDI and Advance Queensland Industry Fellowships. Prof. Batra has played a leading role in major international genomics consortia, including PRACTICAL, contributing to large-scale genome-wide association studies and translational research. Her work has been published in high-impact journals (H-index=51) and cited in global health reports, with influence extending to clinical applications such as risk stratification and biomarker discovery.

She is passionate about precision medicine and is committed to ensuring diverse populations are included in genetic studies. Prof. Batra’s work continues to advance our understanding of disease biology and has supported the development of resources used in both academic and industry settings supported by over 20 million AUD in funding.