WEHI Wednesday Seminar hosted by Professor Edwin Hawkins

Dr Georgia Atkin-Smith
Senior Research Officer – Hawkins Laboratory, Inflammation division, WEHI

Uncovering the in vivo dynamics of cancer cell death, clearance and relapse in the bone marrow

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIWednesday

Including Q&A session
 

Dr Georgia Atkin-Smith is an EL1 Investigator Grant Fellow and Senior Postdoctoral Researcher working with Professor Edwin Hawkins, Inflammation division, WEHI.

Georgia completed her PhD in 2019 with Prof. Ivan Poon at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science where she first began investigating how cells undergo programmed cell death and are removed by phagocytes. She has secured multiple highly competitive research grants including an NHMRC Investigator Grant, L’OreaL UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship, CASS Foundation and Jack Brockhoff Grant. Georgia’s research has resulted in multiple first/senior author publications in influential journals such as Nature Communications (x3), Science Advances, Cell Reports and Communications Biology.

In her seminar, Georgia will discuss the dynamic interplay between dying cells and the immune system in the context of blood cancers. Every year, thousands of Australians will die from blood cancers or related blood-disorders. Although many novel anti-cancer therapies that induce cancer cell death have been developed, little is known about how phagocytes deal with the mass of dying cancer cells and subsequently activate the immune system. Furthermore, the in vivo spatial and temporal dynamics of cancer cell death and clearance post-therapy remains poorly understood. In her seminar, Georgia will showcase a series of in vivo models developed to visualise the immediate response of blood cancer cells to therapeutic intervention in vivo using 4D intravital microscopy of the calvarium bone marrow. These approaches allow direct tracking of therapy-induced cell death, immune cell activation and disease relapse, revealing critical spatial and kinetic insights underpinning cancer cell clearance in vivo.

All welcome!