I completed my PhD in Medicine at the University of Adelaide, based in the School of Medicine and the Centre for Translational Pathway Research. My research focused on the tumour microbiome in head and neck cancer, particularly how tumour-associated bacteria influence microbial adaptation, cancer biology, and treatment response.
My doctoral work investigated head and neck cancer-associated Streptococcus using bacterial genomics, microbiology, cancer cell biology, and transcriptomic analysis. Through this work, I examined how these bacteria adapt to the tumour microenvironment, respond to chemotherapy, and modulate cancer cell responses to treatment.
More broadly, my research interests include cancer biology, tumour microbiology, host–microbe interactions, chemotherapy resistance, multi-omics analysis, and translational cancer research. My work combines wet-lab experimentation and computational biology, with the long-term goal of translating microbiome research into clinically relevant strategies for cancer care.