Investigating the role of cachexia in the response to surgical tumour resection in mice
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Research Project Leader
Professor Gordon Lynch+61 3 8344 0065
Project Details
Cancer cachexia is the progressive skeletal muscle wasting and weakness observed in 80% of cancer patients.
Cachexia reduces mobility and quality of life and in the most severe cases, can lead to death. Unfortunately, there are currently no effective treatments for cachexia, with one of the reasons being a lack of understanding of the cellular mechanisms responsible for this profound wasting and weakness. Chemotherapy and surgical interventions exist only to address primary tumour burden and the efficacy of both are dramatically limited by cachexia itself.
This project will use cell- and animal-based experiments to comprehensively identify how skeletal muscle responds to chemotherapy and surgical tumour resection and will lead to developing more targeted therapies to address cancer associated muscle wasting.
Researchers
Dr Kate Murphy, Senior Research Fellow
Dr James Ryall, Senior Research Fellow
Dr Kristy Swiderski, Senior Research Fellow
Dr Justin Hardee, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Marissa Caldow, Senior Research Fellow
Audrey Chan, Research Support Officer
Jennifer Trieu, Research Assistant
Timur Naim, Research Assistant
Dylan Chung, Research Support Officer
Alaina Lee, Senior Research Assistant
Suzannah Read, Research Assistant
Students
Savant Thakur, PhD student
Francesca Alves, PhD student
John Nguyen, Masters student
Chloe Li, Masters student
Aundrea Quek, Masters student
Yichen Xue, Honours student
Funding
2019-2021 ARC Discovery Project. Mechanisms of age - related changes in amino acid signaling in skeletal muscle
2018-2021 NHMRC Project Grant. Rescuing the Dystrophin-Glycoprotein Complex to protect muscles from wasting conditions
2018-2020 Duchenne Parent Project. Evaluating a sulforaphane-based nutraceutical to alleviate gastrointestinal dysfunction in DMD
2017-2020 NHMRC Project Grant. Therapeutic potential of skeletal muscle plasticity and slow muscle programming for muscular dystrophy
2017-2020 NHMRC Project Grant. A simple method to improve stem cell transplant therapy
2017-2019 Cancer Council Victoria. Using novel Fn14 inhibitory antibodies to treat cardiac cachexia in cancer
2015-2019 ARC Discovery Project. Understanding the cellular cues that direct muscle stem cell specification
Research Opportunities
This research project is available to PhD students, Masters by Research, Honours students, Master of Biomedical Science, Post Doctor Researchers to join as part of their thesis.
Please contact the Research Group Leader to discuss your options.