Professor Khanna is NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and currently holds Professorial appointments at University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. Her primary interest is in understanding how cells respond to DNA damage and how defects in these pathways can predispose to breast cancer. Her research has been widely recognised in the international literature in the area of DNA damage signalling and repair particularly on the functional analysis of ATM and identification and characterization of a number of partners and targets of ATM including p53, BRCA1, NBS1 and CHK2. More recently, she has discovered single-stranded DNA binding proteins, hSSB1 and hSSB2 involved in DNA repair; a novel protein, designated as Cep55, involved in regulation of final stage of cell cycle and have functionally characterized BRCA2 interacting protein, Centrobin. She has been successful in obtaining large grants from US Department of Defence and Susan G Komen breast Cancer Foundation as Principal Investigator and from the National Institute of Health as co-Investigator. She has published over 160 original papers including reports in Nature, Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, Molecular Cell, Developmental Cell and EMBO J. She has continued success with funding from national agencies including continual NHMRC Program grant funding for 3 rounds and currently hold NHMRC project grant, Cancer Council Queensland grant & National Breast Cancer Foundation Concept award as Principal Investigator.