Decoding Blood Cancer Using Advanced Genomic Technologies

• Masters by Coursework
• PhD

Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are rare blood cancers that cause the body to produce too many blood cells. Although current treatments can help manage symptoms, they do not cure the disease, and many patients eventually develop serious complications. This PhD project aims to understand how changes within cancer cells, as well as signals from the surrounding bone marrow environment, drive disease progression.

The student will gain training in cutting-edge technologies, including single-cell sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and CRISPR/Cas base editing, and apply these approaches using pre-clinical animal models of MPNs (Behrens et al., 2024, Leukemia). The findings will identify new disease mechanisms and may reveal promising targets for the development of improved therapies for patients with MPNs.

The Hawkins lab investigates how cells interact within tissues to drive health and disease, with a particular focus on blood cancers, autoimmune diseases, and immune responses.

The lab combines advanced imaging and molecular technologies to understand disease mechanisms at single-cell resolution. Our expertise includes intravital microscopy to visualise living cells in real time (Hawkins et al., Nature) and spatial transcriptomics of bone tissue to map cellular interactions within the bone marrow microenvironment (Yip et al., Blood 2025).

The Hawkins lab brings together clinician haematologists, experimental haematologists, and imaging specialists, providing a highly collaborative and multidisciplinary research environment. For this project, the student will work closely with the Centre for Dynamic Imaging as well as the Kershaw, Babon, and Goddard-Borger laboratories at WEHI.