The main focus for the Cancer and Stem Cell Laboratory team is to investigate how healthy stem cells are converted into cancer stem cells and to develop effective new therapies that specifically destroy cancer stem cells. These cells, which are often resistant to chemotherapy, are now believed to be the engine driving the growth of cancer and the root cause of therapy resistance and disease relapse.
Stem cells are special cells that are not only capable of giving rise to different types of cells, but can copy themselves indefinitely in a process known as self-renewal. If stem cells become cancerous, they can multiply out of control and cause a tumour. Cancer stem cells have their own protective mechanisms that make them resistant to anti-cancer drugs. After chemotherapy, if even one cancer stem cell is still alive, it can regenerate the entire tumour using its unique self-renewal capacity and the disease can come back. The newly emerged tumour after relapse is often more aggressive and more resistant to chemotherapy. Ablation of cancer stem cells is now considered a promising approach to improve cancer survival and may even lead to a cure.
Over the past nine years, our team has generated a body of knowledge in the discovery of therapeutic targets crucial for leukemia stem cells. We have also established evidence of therapeutic efficacy for clinical trials in relapsed acute myeloid leukemia – a deadly blood cancer with a patient survival rate of less than 10 per cent. Most of our research has been published in top scientific journals including Cancer Cell, Blood and Leukemia. In partnership with industry and in close collaboration with clinicians, we are currently converting our research breakthroughs into innovative stem cell-targeted therapies in clinical trials, which will directly benefit patients with the deadly blood cancer.
Focused research areas:
- Leukemia stem cell biology
- Targeted therapy, including immunotherapy and CAR-T cell therapy
- Preclinical drug testing
- Functional genomics and epigenetics
- Signaling pathways
- Cancer metabolism
- Cellular barcoding
- Single-cell multiomics and CUT and Tag
Current funding sources:
- National Health and Medical Research Council
- Cancer Australia
- Leukaemia Foundation
- Cancer Council
- Tour de Cure
- Industry
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Associate Professor Jenny Wang
Head, Cancer and Stem Cell Laboratory
School of Medical Sciences
Kolling Institute
Jenny is an internationally recognised expert in cancer and stem cell research. She undertook postdoctoral research in leukemia stem cell biology at Harvard Medical School. After publishing her first-author paper in Science and co-author paper in Nature, she returned to Sydney in 2011 and established her own independent stem cell group in 2013. Her research was the first to link Wnt/β-catenin pathway to leukemia stem cells. Her research group expanded this breakthrough finding to link G protein-coupled receptors to β-catenin activation. The seminal discoveries are particularly important because G protein-coupled receptors are targets for 50 per cent of marketed drugs in non-cancer disease but their role in cancer remains unexplored. Her research provides evidence-based repurposing of non-cancer GPCR drugs for cancer therapy. In collaboration with OncoMed Pharmaceuticals USA, her research group has recently demonstrated therapeutic efficacy of GPCR-associated drug in relapsed acute myeloid leukemia, resulting in current translation of the innovative stem cell-targeted therapy into clinical trials to directly benefit patients with deadly blood cancer.
Over the past nine years, Jenny has secured more than $6 million in competitive research funding as a principal investigator, including three NHMRC project grants, along with grants from the ARC, the Cancer Institute, Cancer Australia, Leukaemia Foundation, Cancer Council, Tour de Cure and the Anthony Rothe Memorial Trust. Most of her grant-supported research has been published in the top scientific journals including Cancer Cell. (2nd of 207 in Cancer Research).
Jenny has been frequently invited as a keynote speaker at international conferences and as a reviewer or editor for reputable journals. She has served as a lead scientific advisor on the international clinical advisory board and served on a number of grant review panels, such as NHMRC Ideas, Medical Research Future Fund Stem Cell Therapies Mission and the Victorian Cancer Agency for Early/Mid-Career Fellowship. She has supervised a number of PhD and Honours students who have published in high-impact papers, presented at national and international conferences and received many awards.
In the next five years, a main focus of her research group is to translate the program discoveries into clinical trials for patients with deadly blood cancer, with the ultimate goal of replacing ineffective chemotherapy with effective stem cell-targeted therapies.
Dr Nunki Hassan
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Xiangtoa Wei
PhD Student
Kaitlyn Trajcevski
Research Assistant
Ali Zare
PhD Student
Claudia Widjaja
Research Assistant
Gazi Fairooz
Research Project Student
Yang (Henry) Lin
PhD Student
Imogen Cratchley
Honours Student
Likun He
PhD Student
Sharon Liang
Masters Student
(Syeda) Aaima Hasnain
(Syeda) Aaima Hasnain – Honours Student
Xinru Guo
Master Student
Delanie (Lulu) Massenet
Visiting Student
Irene Skandalakis
Visiting Student
(Giancarlo) Evan
Research Project Student
Letian Hong
Research Assistant
