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Walter & Eliza Hall Institute
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Professor Suzanne Cory AC, PhD, FAA, FRS
Suzanne Cory is the Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Joint Head (with Professor Jerry Adams) of the Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division at the Institute, and Professor of Medical Biology at The University of Melbourne.
Personal
Suzanne Cory was raised in Kew and educated at Canterbury Girls’ Secondary School, University High School and The University of Melbourne. In 1966, fired with enthusiasm for the new science of molecular biology, she went to its mecca, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, England, to undertake PhD studies. At that time, the LMB was home to three Nobel prize winners, including Dr Francis Crick, the Head of her Department, and Dr Fred Sanger, whose new RNA sequencing methods became the foundation of her PhD. It was also there that she met US-born scientist Dr Jerry Adams, whom she later married. Over the next few years at the University of Geneva, Cory and Adams began the dynamic research partnership that continues to this day. They have two daughters.Research Interests
Suzanne Cory’s research has had a major impact on the understanding of immunology and the development of cancer. After pioneering PhD studies determining the sequence of transfer RNA, her post-doctoral studies at the University of Geneva focussed on sequence analysis of a model messenger RNA.
Cory and Adams returned to Melbourne in 1971 to The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, where they helped to introduce gene cloning technology in Australia. During their first decade in Melbourne, they addressed a central puzzle regarding the immune response: how does the body makes the myriad antibodies needed to fight diverse infectious agents? Their laboratory helped uncover the astonishing solution: antibody genes are encoded as bits and pieces which can combine in a myriad ways, thereby creating much greater diversity with which to fight infection.
In 1981, their attention turned to the nature of the genetic accidents that cause cancer. Their laboratory showed that damage to chromosomes can activate cancer-promoting genes. They tracked down the genetic mutation which leads to Burkitt’s lymphoma, a malignancy of antibody-producing cells. In collaboration with Alan Harris, they then engineered novel lines of cancer-prone mice, to study the early stages of disease and test for synergistic mutations.
The current focus of their research is how cells decide whether to live or die. This program was launched in 1988 by the seminal finding of David Vaux in their laboratory that bcl-2, the gene responsible for follicular lymphoma, promotes cell survival (see bcl-2: an oncogene that frustrates apoptosis). This discovery opened an entirely new way of thinking about cancer development, since all other oncogenes (cancer-causing genes) had been found to promote cell proliferation. The bcl-2 gene proved to have numerous relatives, and some actually promote cell death (apoptosis) rather than cell survival. A consortium of collaborating laboratories within the Institute, including those of Cory, Adams, Strasser and Huang, is now focussed on understanding how the opposing factions of bcl-2 family arbitrate the cellular life-or-death decision. This knowledge will lead to the development of more effective therapeutics for cancer and degenerative diseases.