TYROSINE KINASES IN CANCER RECURRENCE
With
Dr Yu Yu
Program Lead, Curtin Medical Research Institute &
Senior Research Fellow, Curtin Medical School,
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Australia | July 2025
Dr Yu Yu completed her PhD at Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney in experimental therapeutics for cancer. She then pursued postdoctoral training at the Richard W. TeLinde Gynecologic Pathology Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA with a focus on understanding the treatment for recurrent ovarian tumour.
Dr Yu Yu leads the Oncology and Gynaecology Research Program at Curtin Medical Research Institute . Dr Yu is also a senior research fellow at Curtin Medical School.
Dr Yu Yu has a strong expertise in developing molecular and cellular therapeutics for cancer. She is a former NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellow and Raine/Robson Fellow. Her studies focused on recurrent cancers, with interests in biomarker and therapeutics development.
Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest gynaecologic cancers. There are ~300,000 new cases of ovarian cancer worldwide each year. Less than half of women diagnosed survive 5-years after diagnosis. Platinum-based chemotherapy is used to treat ovarian cancers and a variety of other solid cancers. The National Cancer Institute reports 20% of cancer patients worldwide (3.6 million people) receive a platinum-based drug as part of treatment. However, ~20-50% do not respond because of intrinsic resistance. Currently, there is no way to predict response prior to starting platinum chemotherapy.
Dr Yu Yu’s laboratory is working on better ways to treat cancers, particularly ovarian cancers which are resistant to conventional chemotherapy. The aims are for better informed treatment choice and reducing unnecessary exposure to ineffective chemotherapy and its potential adverse effects.
Collaboration partners include St John of God Hospital and King Edward Memorial Hospital, both in Western Australia. Funding for Dr Yu Yu’s research comes from WA Department of Health’s Future Health and Innovation Research Fund, Raine Medical Research Foundation and Endometriosis Foundation of America.
Source: Supplied and adapted
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0209-0586
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Big data to improve the use of antidepressant medicines in aged care
Georgina Hughes is a pharmacist & PhD Candidate with the University of South Australia Clinical and Health Sciences and the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA), undertaking research at South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).
Georgina’s PhD study and first published paper was on how to improve the safe and effective use of antidepressant medicines and optimise quality use of medicines in older people accessing residential aged care.
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Hormone receptor positive breast cancer and therapy resistance
Prof Elgene Lim is a medical oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital and Head of the Connie Johnson Breast Cancer Research Lab at the Garvan Institute. Following his PhD at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute where he identified the aberrant cells in carriers of the BRCA1 mutant gene, a hereditary breast cancer syndrome as the culprit cells giving rise to breast cancer, he furthered his research and clinical training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He was awarded the National Breast Cancer Foundation Practitioner Fellowship in 2014 and returned from Boston to Australia. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural National Breast Cancer Foundation Endowed Chair, and subsequently appointed the Principal Cancer Theme Lead at UNSW.
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Muscle Cell Communication and Repair
Dr. William Roman is a Group Leader at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University. He obtained his PhD from Paris Descartes University and Freie University of Berlin, focusing on nuclear positioning during skeletal muscle development. Dr. Roman’s research journey has taken him across the globe, including postdoctoral work in Barcelona, tissue engineering in Lisbon, and a brief stint at Stanford University.
At ARMI, Dr. Roman leads innovative research on intercellular communication within muscle organs. His work involves growing human muscles on chips to understand how skeletal muscle cells interact with neurons and tendons. This research aims to develop better models for studying muscle diseases, drug screening, and even applications in cellular agriculture and biorobotics.
