Susan Woods

Susan is a young investigator with three co-first author Nature Journal publications in the field of cancer research. In the lab of Nobel Laureate, J. Michael Bishop M.D., at University of California San Francisco, Susan added to her molecular techniques, honing her mouse skills and small RNA expertise, whilst being exposed to the wonderful intellectual stimulation and collaborative possibilities that working in such a large and innovative research community can bring. Susan then chose to work with Prof. Nick Hayward at the Berghofer-QIMR, one of the largest and most prolific medical research institutes in the southern hemisphere. Here Susan became familiar with large patient sample and associated clinical data sets and techniques to analyse the genetic contribution to cancer. This included state-of-the-art NextGen sequencing technologies, identifying relevant genetic alterations, and testing the functional consequences of such alterations to cancer. Susan is passionate about moving discoveries into preclinical models and testing possible novel therapeutics, identifying patient subgroups relevant to discoveries, and elucidating the mechanism of action of cancer specific alterations to determine whether they may be drug-able. Susan’s current project focuses on colorectal cancer.