Dr Nicole Wittwer is a postdoctoral researcher in the Translational Oncology Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology. She has a keen interest in the immune system and how we can modulate the immune system to fight back against cancer.
Dr Wittwer completed her PhD at the University of South Australia in the laboratory of Professor Angel Lopez, investigating the role of the stem cell marker CD123 in acute myeloid leukaemia. She then undertook a post-doctoral position at a highly successful Biotechnology company, Bionomics Ltd. As a member of the Oncology team, she worked on drug discovery and development programs and contributed to the identification and development of pharmacodynamic biomarkers directly in support of a phase I clinical trial in metastatic colorectal cancer.
Dr Wittwer is now based in the Translational Oncology Laboratory headed by Professor Michael Brown. The Translational Oncology Laboratory aims to develop new approaches to modulate the body’s immune system to more effectively target cancer cells and to translate these research discoveries into the clinic. Her research focuses on understanding how cancer cells override our immune defences and using this knowledge to develop therapeutic approaches to overcome immune resistance and sensitise cancer cells to therapy. Recent projects have focused on combining antibody drug conjugates with immunotherapy in breast and colon cancer in collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb and the development of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells targeting a novel antigen in pancreatic cancer.