Position title: PhD Project - Clinical Proteomics for Paediatric Cancer

Employer: Children’s Medical Research Institute

Closing date: Open until filled

Brief position description: Background: Paediatric cancer remains the largest cause of death from disease in Australian children. Survivors suffer significant long-term treatment toxicity and poor quality of life. Precision medicine involves generating molecular data that is unique to an individual, to identify features called biomarkers that can inform treatment decisions. Proteomics is the study of the complete set of proteins in a cell. Proteins are highly attractive targets as potential biomarkers, as most anticancer drugs interact directly with proteins rather than DNA or RNA. Mass spectrometry is a technology that can measure an entire proteome, quantifying tens of thousands of proteins in a single cancer sample and therefore including a wealth of potential novel cancer biomarkers.

Project aim: This project will form a major stream in a program of research to investigate how proteomics can improve biomarker discovery in paediatric cancer. We will use mass spectrometry to generate protein measurements from Australian cohorts of paediatric cancers and apply bioinformatics expertise to define a computational signature to improve prediction of treatment response. The research will be highly translational, aiming to explore clinically relevant research questions in paediatric cancer to address urgent areas of unmet need.

PhD Candidate requirements: A background in biology or oncology will be highly advantageous. In this project you will learn computational biology in cancer research. While previous coding experience will be highly valuable, it is not essential because you can gain these skills during your PhD. You will receive excellent training in all aspects of research, including reading scientific literature, conducting high-quality and reproducible research, peer-reviewed publishing and presenting at scientific conferences. The successful PhD Candidate will be highly motivated, a quick learner, strong communicator and eager to pursue a career in cancer science.

About the supervisors: Your PhD will be jointly supervised by Drs Rebecca Poulos and Bhavna Padhye, who are inaugural Sydney Cancer Partners Translational Partners Fellows. Dr Poulos is a Senior Research Officer at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI). She is a cancer biologist, bioinformatician and expert in multi-omic data integration. She has published as a first-author in high-impact journals including Nature and Cancer Cell, received several prestigious research awards, and has won over $1.25 million in research funding as a Chief Investigator. Dr Padhye is a paediatric oncologist staff specialist at Children’s Hospital Westmead (CHW). She is also clinical lead in the Molecular Genomics team at the Children’s Cancer Research Unit (CHW), site Principal Investigator for the Children’s Oncology Group and member of ANZCHOG, a national clinical trials group for childhood cancer. 

Research environment: You will join the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), which is home to the ProCan research initiative. ProCan (ie, the Australian Cancer Research Foundation International Centre for the Proteome of Human Cancer) is a world-first program, conducting large-scale proteomic research to change the way cancer is diagnosed and treated. You will join the Cancer Data Science group in ProCan, a research team comprising several highly skilled computational biologists, statisticians, AI experts and data scientists. During your PhD, you will also liaise with a range of multi-disciplinary experts in ProCan, and with clinician researchers at the Children’s Hospital Westmead (CHW). Both CMRI and CHW are located in the world class Westmead Health Precinct.

Job website: http://www.sydney.edu.au/research/opportunities/3266.html

Contact name: Rebecca Poulos

Contact email: rpoulos@cmri.org.au