Real Health Lecture Series

Medical Oncologist
Princess Alexandra Hospital

Dr Kate is a medical oncologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, where she treats breast and gastrointestinal tract cancers and is the principal investigator for a number of trials in these tumour streams.  Kate is also the clinical sponsor of Madeline’s Model a genomic sequencing partnership offering every young Queenslanders with cancer upfront genomic sequencing at no cost to the patient.

Director, QUT Centre for Genomics and Personalised Care

Distinguished Professor Griffiths is a molecular geneticist with more than 30 years' research experience undertaking research focused on identifying genes involved in common traits and disorders including migraine, cardiovascular disease, memory, dementia and concussion. She is director of the Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health at QUT, which aims to discover better methods of diagnosing disease, develop targeted treatments based on genetic information, and training the next generation of translational genomics scientists.

Her research has led to diagnostic breakthroughs for several neurogenetic disorders, including familial migraine, ataxia, epilepsy and hereditary stroke and has appeared in more than 400 peer-reviewed international journal publications.

Program Lead, Personalised Cancer Care, QUT School of Nursing

Associate Professor Kim Alexander is the Program Lead for Personalised Health within QUT's Cancer & Palliative Care Outcomes Centre, and the Centre for Healthcare Transformation. She has 15 years of research and clinical expertise in oncology as a registered nurse. Her research program is at the forefront of investigating the genetic contribution of people at risk of poor outcomes following cancer treatment, and the need for personalised approaches to cancer care.

Associate Professor Alexander's work has contributed to our knowledge that genetics affects outcomes beyond susceptibility to disease, such as symptom experience and quality of life.

Strategic Research Fellow, QUT School of Biomedical Sciences

Mark Adams is currently a Strategic Research Fellow at QUT. He completed his PhD at the Mater Research Institute-University of Queensland in 2012 and with the support of an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship, he commenced postdoctoral work at QUT. Dr Adams is now group leader at the Translational Research Institute (TRI) on the Princess Alexandra Hospital campus, Brisbane. His research focuses on exploiting cellular programmes that regulate genome instability, cell cycle and cell growth to identify novel therapeutic avenues and improve therapy response for lung cancers.

Dr Adams' work is published in leading journals including Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Nature Communications and Nucleic Acids Research and is supported through funding from the Queensland Government, NHMRC, the International Lung Cancer Foundation and Cancer Australia.