Investigating the progression and treatment of blood cancer in the bone marrow microenvironment

• PhD

This exciting PhD project offers the opportunity to work with cutting-edge microscopy techniques to explore the complexities of cancer biology. It will implement a range of techniques including intravital, confocal and multiphoton microscopy, flow cytometry and spatial transcriptomics to study how blood cancers develop within the bone marrow and respond to therapy. It will examine how the immune system can recognise and remove dying cancer cells, and how cancer may evade this process to develop resistance. The overall goal of this project is to generate new fundamental understanding of cancer cell death and phagocytosis to improve the efficacy of novel therapeutics.

Dr Georgia Atkin-Smith and Prof Edwin Hawkins are seeking a highly motivated and talented student to commence a PhD in 2027 within their team at the WEHI (Inflammation Division). Georgia is an expert in cell death, phagocytosis and in vivo imaging, that she applies to understand cancer biology. Georgia and Edwin specialise in intravital microscopy of the bone marrow calvarium – a high-resolution microscopy technique that can image directly inside the bone marrow of living organisms.