RESEARCHER PROFILE Associate Professor Joy Wolfram
Group Leader, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology,
School of Chemical Engineering,
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia
Filmed in Brisbane, Queensland | June 2024
Triple-negative breast cancer is aggressive, harder to treat and – for the 2500 Australian women who are diagnosed each year – the disease is more likely to spread to other organs and result in death.
Associate Professor Joy Wolfram, leading a nanomedicine and extracellular vesicle research program with the goal of developing innovative approaches that bring the next generation of treatments and diagnostics directly to the clinic, says this is partially because triple negative breast cancer cells are able to hijack a messaging network in our bodies and convince the immune system to ignore the problem.
Extracellular vesicles are the body’s text messages: little fat bubbles that carry vital information and cargo between cells. However, we know little about how these messengers move about. Understanding this process could be key to developing new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for diseases such as cancer.
Assoc Prof Wolfram has joint appointments in the School of Chemical Engineering and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at The University of Queensland, and through her work at the AIBN, she aims to develop a new paradigm of therapeutics (using nanotechnology and cell products) to treat life-threatening diseases that are major causes of death globally, including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and breast cancer.
It is hoped this will save lives by manufacturing at scale. In so doing, deliver national manufacturing innovation and a skilled workforce by working with a multidisciplinary team and industry partners to position Australia as a global leader in extracellular vesicle medicine.
Her particular focus areas are understanding the role of extracellular vesicles in cancer immunoevasion and metastasis, developing improved methods for extracellular vesicle isolation from human biofluids, and designing hybrid drug delivery systems with extracellular vesicle and synthetic components for a ‘best-of-both-worlds’ approach to treat cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease.
Her work has so far appeared in more than 80 journal publications and has received more than 30 awards from eight countries, including the 2016 Amgen Scholars Ten to Watch List (best and brightest up-and-comers in science and medicine across 42 countries), the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list in Health Care in the United States/Canada, the 2019 shortlist for the Nature Research Award for Inspiring Science (one of ten worldwide), and the 2021 Finnish Expat of the Year.
Assoc Prof Wolfram is currently funded by Australia’s National Breast Cancer Foundation, Health Translation Queensland, Mayo Clinic and Australian Government’s NHMRC.
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Personalised approaches to lung therapy
Dr. Adams’ research focus is on lung cancer, which is the deadliest of all cancers worldwide. He is working towards developing personalised approaches to pinpoint a therapy that is going to be most effective for the person with that disease. Dr. Adams’ research is focusing on chemotherapy and targeted therapy, and he is trying to identify upfront which of those tumours are likely to be resistant to the therapy. He then identifies strategies that will resensitize or increase the sensitivity of the tumour to the standard of care that is targeted therapy or chemotherapy.
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Investigating the benefits of donor human milk for preterm infants
Together, SAHMRI and Lifeblood are leading a consortium to revolutionise the way human milk, and novel products made from human milk, are used as nutritional and medical interventions to improve health outcomes in vulnerable infants, but with potential application for a diverse range of medical indications.
Currently, babies who are born early preterm – before 32 weeks – are given donor milk when their own mother’s milk is not available or in short supply. Whether donor milk is beneficial for babies born just a few weeks early is unclear, as very little research has been undertaken with these babies.
The GIFT Trial will soon commence as an investigation between SAHMRI, the University of Adelaide, the Red Cross Lifeblood Milk Bank conducted at five sites across three states in Australia.
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Biostatistics in Clinical Trials
As a biostatistician working in research and clinical settings, Kate Francis plays a vital role in ensuring all projects adhere to best practice guidelines and are transparently reported. She has served as the lead statistician for the analysis of clinical trials across a broad range of subject areas, including neonatal resuscitation, BCG for allergy and infection, convulsive status epilepticus and her work has been published in the top journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet. Most recently she was awarded the 2025 Excellence in Trial Statistics Award for her work on the PLUSS trial.
