Congratulations to Smitha Georgy on her Platform Access Grant success!

Dr Smitha Georgy is in the CCS Epidermal/Development lab

Congratulations to Dr Smitha Georgy who has won Faculty Platform Access Grant (PAG) funding in 2016 for her project titled, "Identification of pathways responsible for BET inhibitor resistance in HNSCC". The funding will enable Smitha to use the platforms Micromon and Monash bioinformatics for her research on head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

HNSCC is the sixth most prevalent cancer world-wide, with 600,000 new cases reported annually. The current conventional treatment regimens (surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy) are non-selective, and are administered regardless of the etiology or molecular drivers. We have recently made a major contribution towards understanding the molecular drivers of HNSCC with the identification of a novel GRHL3/GSK3B/c-MYC proto-oncogenic network that is activated in these cancers. The establishment of orthotopic mice model in the laboratory provides an excellent tool to identify selective inhibitors in HNSCC. The objectives of the proposed research are to analyse the signalling pathways in HNSCC and to identify the appropriate combination therapy in metastatic HNSCC.

See more:

• Research group: www.med.monash.edu.au/medicine/alfred/research/epidermal-development.html
• Recent publications: 
• Two Ancient Gene Families Are Critical for Maintenance of the Mammalian Skin Barrier in Postnatal Life. (2016)
• Identification of a Novel Proto-oncogenic Network in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma. (2015)