- About
- Strategic Plan
- Structure
- Governance
- Scientific divisions
- ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells
- ACRF Chemical Biology
- Advanced Technology and Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Blood Cells and Blood Cancer
- Clinical Translation
- Epigenetics and Development
- Immunology
- Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence
- Inflammation
- Personalised Oncology
- Population Health and Immunity
- Structural Biology
- Ubiquitin Signalling
- Laboratory operations
- Funding
- Annual reports
- Human research ethics
- Scientific integrity
- Institute life
- Career opportunities
- Business Development
- Collaborators
- Suppliers
- Publications repository
- Awards
- Discoveries
- Centenary 2015
- History
- Contact us
- Research
- Diseases
- Cancer
- Development and ageing
- Immune health and infection
- Research fields
- Research technologies
- Research centres
- People
- Alistair Brown
- Anne-Laure Puaux
- Assoc Prof Joanna Groom
- Associate Profesor Ian Majewski
- Associate Professor Aaron Jex
- Associate Professor Andrew Webb
- Associate Professor Chris Tonkin
- Associate Professor Daniel Gray
- Associate Professor Diana Hansen
- Associate Professor Edwin Hawkins
- Associate Professor Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Associate Professor Gemma Kelly
- Associate Professor Grant Dewson
- Associate Professor Isabelle Lucet
- Associate Professor James Vince
- Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din
- Associate Professor Jeanne Tie
- Associate Professor Jeff Babon
- Associate Professor Joan Heath
- Associate Professor John Wentworth
- Associate Professor Justin Boddey
- Associate Professor Kate Sutherland
- Associate Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat
- Associate Professor Matthew Ritchie
- Associate Professor Melissa Call
- Associate Professor Melissa Davis
- Associate Professor Misty Jenkins
- Associate Professor Nawaf Yassi
- Associate Professor Oliver Sieber
- Associate Professor Peter Czabotar
- Associate Professor Rachel Wong
- Associate Professor Rhys Allan
- Associate Professor Rosie Watson
- Associate Professor Ruth Kluck
- Associate Professor Sandra Nicholson
- Associate Professor Seth Masters
- Associate Professor Sumitra Ananda
- Associate Professor Tim Thomas
- Associate Professor Tracy Putoczki
- Chela Niall
- Deborah Carr
- Dr Alisa Glukhova
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Ashley Ng
- Dr Belinda Phipson
- Dr Ben Tran
- Dr Bernhard Lechtenberg
- Dr Brad Sleebs
- Dr Drew Berry
- Dr Gwo Yaw Ho
- Dr Hamish King
- Dr Hui-Li Wong
- Dr Jacqui Gulbis
- Dr Jim Whittle
- Dr Kelly Rogers
- Dr Lucy Gately
- Dr Margaret Lee
- Dr Mary Ann Anderson
- Dr Maryam Rashidi
- Dr Matthew Call
- Dr Nadia Davidson
- Dr Nadia Kershaw
- Dr Philippe Bouillet
- Dr Rebecca Feltham
- Dr Rory Bowden
- Dr Samir Taoudi
- Dr Sarah Best
- Dr Saskia Freytag
- Dr Shabih Shakeel
- Dr Shalin Naik
- Dr Sheau Wen Lok
- Dr Stephin Vervoort
- Dr Yunshun Chen
- Guillaume Lessene
- Helene Martin
- Joh Kirby
- Kaye Wycherley
- Keely Bumsted O'Brien
- Mr Mark Eaton
- Mr Simon Monard
- Mr Steve Droste
- Ms Carolyn MacDonald
- Professor Alan Cowman
- Professor Andreas Strasser
- Professor Andrew Lew
- Professor Andrew Roberts
- Professor Anne Voss
- Professor Clare Scott
- Professor David Huang
- Professor David Komander
- Professor David Vaux
- Professor Doug Hilton
- Professor Geoff Lindeman
- Professor Gordon Smyth
- Professor Ian Wicks
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Professor James McCarthy
- Professor James Murphy
- Professor Jane Visvader
- Professor Jerry Adams
- Professor John Silke
- Professor Ken Shortman
- Professor Leanne Robinson
- Professor Leonard C Harrison
- Professor Lynn Corcoran
- Professor Marc Pellegrini
- Professor Marco Herold
- Professor Marnie Blewitt
- Professor Melanie Bahlo
- Professor Mike Lawrence
- Professor Nicos Nicola
- Professor Peter Colman
- Professor Peter Gibbs
- Professor Phil Hodgkin
- Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Professor Stephen Nutt
- Professor Suzanne Cory
- Professor Terry Speed
- Professor Tony Papenfuss
- Professor Wai-Hong Tham
- Professor Warren Alexander
- Diseases
- Education
- PhD
- Honours
- Masters
- Clinician-scientist training
- Undergraduate
- Student research projects
- A new regulator of 'stemness' to create dendritic cell factories for immunotherapy
- Advanced imaging interrogation of pathogen induced NETosis
- Cancer driver deserts
- Cryo-electron microscopy of Wnt signalling complexes
- Deciphering the heterogeneity of breast cancer at the epigenetic and genetic levels
- Developing drugs to block malaria transmission
- Developing new computational tools for CRISPR genomics to advance cancer research
- Developing novel antibody-based methods for regulating apoptotic cell death
- Discovering novel paradigms to cure viral and bacterial infections
- Discovery and targeting of novel regulators of transcription
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Do membrane forces govern assembly of the deadly apoptotic pore?
- Doublecortin-like kinases, drug targets in cancer and neurological disorders
- E3 ubiquitin ligases in neurodegeneration, autoinflammation and cancer
- Engineering improved CAR-T cell therapies
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Exploiting cell death pathways in regulatory T cells for cancer immunotherapy
- Finding treatments for chromatin disorders of intellectual disability
- Functional epigenomics in human B cells
- Genomic rearrangement detection with third generation sequencing technology
- How does DNA damage shape disease susceptibility over a lifetime?
- How does DNA hypermutation shape the development of solid tumours?
- How platelets prevent neonatal stroke
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigating the role of dysregulated Tom40 in neurodegeneration
- Investigating the role of mutant p53 in cancer
- Lupus: proteasome inhibitors and inflammation
- Machine learning methods for somatic genome rearrangement detection
- Malaria: going bananas for sex
- Measurements of malaria parasite and erythrocyte membrane interactions using cutting-edge microscopy
- Measuring susceptibility of cancer cells to BH3-mimetics
- Minimising rheumatic adverse events of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy
- Mutational signatures of structural variation
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Predicting the effect of non-coding structural variants in cancer
- Revealing the epigenetic origins of immune disease
- Reversing antimalarial resistance in human malaria parasites
- Structural and functional analysis of DNA repair complexes
- Targeting human infective coronaviruses using alpaca antibodies
- Towards targeting altered glial biology in high-grade brain cancers
- Uncovering the real impact of persistent malaria infections
- Understanding Plasmodium falciparum invasion of red blood cells
- Understanding how malaria parasites sabotage acquisition of immunity
- Understanding malaria infection dynamics
- Understanding the mechanism of type I cytokine receptor activation
- Unveiling the heterogeneity of small cell lung cancer
- Using alpaca antibodies to understand malaria invasion and transmission
- Using combination immunotherapy to tackle heterogeneous brain tumours
- Using intravital microscopy for immunotherapy against brain tumours
- Using nanobodies to cross the blood brain barrier for drug delivery
- Using structural biology to understand programmed cell death
- School resources
- Frequently asked questions
- Student profiles
- Abebe Fola
- Andrew Baldi
- Anna Gabrielyan
- Bridget Dorizzi
- Casey Ah-Cann
- Catia Pierotti
- Emma Nolan
- Huon Wong
- Jing Deng
- Joy Liu
- Kaiseal Sarson-Lawrence
- Komal Patel
- Lilly Backshell
- Megan Kent
- Naomi Jones
- Rebecca Delconte
- Roberto Bonelli
- Rune Larsen
- Runyu Mao
- Sarah Garner
- Simona Seizova
- Wayne Cawthorne
- Wil Lehmann
- Miles Horton
- Alexandra Gurzau
- Student achievements
- Student association
- Learning Hub
- News
- Donate
- Online donation
- Ways to support
- Support outcomes
- Supporter stories
- Rotarians against breast cancer
- A partnership to improve treatments for cancer patients
- 20 years of cancer research support from the Helpman family
- A generous gift from a cancer survivor
- A gift to support excellence in Australian medical research
- An enduring friendship
- Anonymous donor helps bridge the 'valley of death'
- Renewed support for HIV eradication project
- Searching for solutions to muscular dystrophy
- Supporting research into better treatments for colon cancer
- Taking a single cell focus with the DROP-seq
- WEHI.TV
Nadia Kershaw - projects
Researcher:
Structure and Function of the Thrombopoietin Receptor
The cytokine Thrombopoietin (Tpo) controls the maintenance of blood stem cells as well as the numbers of platelet in the blood. Clinically, excessive signalling through the molecule that recognises Tpo (the Thrombopoietin Receptor) causes a type of blood cancer called myeloproliferative disease.
The architecture of TpoR is distinct from any other cytokine receptor and there is a complete lack of structural data for it. We have developed a recombinant expression system for Tpo and TpoR, which interact readily and we are using crystallography and CryoEM to solve the structure of the TpoR:TpoR complex. We are also using our unique reagents and structural information to developing novel strategies for inhibiting excessive TpoR signalling, with the aim of generating new treatments for myeloproliferative disease. This work is in collaboration with the Babon Lab (WEHI).
Structural and mechanistic studies on Suppressors of Cytokine Signaling.
The Suppressors of Cytokine Signalling (SOCS) have long been studied at WEHI for their role in negative regulation of cytokine signalling. The Kershaw and Babon Labs have made a significant contribution to basic research in this area, solving the first structures of SOCS1 as the first structures of SOCS1 and SOCS3 bound to the JAK kinase domain. More recently, with the advent of immunotherapy as an exciting treatment option for cancer, inhibiting the SOCS proteins provides a possible route to boost the efficacy of current immunotherapy approaches. We are studying the mechanism of SOCS proteins and other negative regulators of cytokine signaling such as LNK and PTP1B. This work is in collaboration with the Babon Lab (WEHI).
Novel modulators of T-cell activity in autoimmunity and cancer
T cells are a critical part of a healthy immune system, and T-cell activation is one of several key events required to successfully mount an immune response. Soluble CTLA4 proteins block T cell activation, and are already in use as therapeutics for Rheumatoid Arthritis and organ transplant rejection (e.g Abatacept), but recent publications from several groups indicate the mode of action of current CTLA4-based therapeutics may be more complex that initially thought. We are exploring novel CTLA4-fusions and their potential as immunomodulatory therapeutics. This project involves rational design of CTLA4 variants with altered immunomodulatory activity, and structural studies on the mode of binding with target proteins, to allow further refinement as therapeutics as well as elucidation of the mode of action. This work is in collaboration with Ross Dickins (Monash).