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Themes / Divisions

About

My research interest is in developing personalized therapies for brain cancer, through the advanced investigation of the molecular features of cancer. This expertise, together with Dr Sarah Best (clinical) and Dr Saskia Freytag (bioinformatics) provides the multidisciplinary foundations of the Brain Cancer Research Laboratory.

The research interests of the lab include:
– Research that is patient-centred and informed by consumers
– Integrating advanced diagnostics together with clinical data to discover new biomarkers
– Applying deep learning to identify prognostic biomarkers
– Developing new pre-clinical models of brain cancer
– Dissecting glioma heterogeneity and its microenvironment
– Identifying existing drugs for repurposing in brain cancer
– Establishing innovative clinical trial design strategies to progress new treatments and combinations for patients
– Support and collaboration across brain cancer research fields

Publications

Selected publications from Dr Jim Whittle

Hitchen N, Shahnam A, Manoharan S, Topp M, Mileshkin L, Lim AM, Whittle JR, Luen SJ, Solomon B, Lackovic K, Desai J, Tran B. Trends in phase 1 oncology clinical trials across Australia; Analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov 2012–2022. Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2024;:10.1111/ajco.14100

Furst LM, Roussel EM, Leung RF, George AM, Best SA, Whittle JR, Firestein R, Faux MC, Eisenstat DD. The Landscape of Pediatric High-Grade Gliomas: The Virtues and Pitfalls of Pre-Clinical Models. Biology. 2024;13(6):10.3390/biology13060424

Moffet J, Kriel J, Lu T, Freytag L, Whittle J, Best S, Freytag S. Abstract 5498: Multi-modal examination of spatial heterogeneity in the astrocytoma microenvironment. Cancer Research. 2024;84(6_Supplement):10.1158/1538-7445.am2024-5498

Duchatel RJ, Jackson ER, Parackal SG, Kiltschewskij D, Findlay IJ, Mannan A, Staudt DE, Thomas BC, Germon ZP, Laternser S, Kearney PS, Jamaluddin MFB, Douglas AM, Beitaki TS, McEwen HP, Persson ML, Hocke EA, Jain V, Aksu M, Manning EE, Murray HC, Verrills NM, Sun CX, Daniel P, Vilain RE, Skerrett-Byrne DA, Nixon B, Hua S, de Bock CE, Colino-Sanguino Y, Valdes-Mora F, Tsoli M, Ziegler DS, Cairns MJ, Raabe EH, Vitanza NA, Hulleman E, Phoenix TN, Koschmann C, Alvaro F, Dayas CV, Tinkle CL, Wheeler H, Whittle JR, Eisenstat DD, Firestein R, Mueller S, Valvi S, Hansford JR, Ashley DM, Gregory SG, Kilburn LB, Nazarian J, Cain JE, Dun MD. PI3K/mTOR is a therapeutically targetable genetic dependency in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2024;134(6):10.1172/jci170329

Brown DV, Anttila CJA, Ling L, Grave P, Baldwin TM, Munnings R, Farchione AJ, Bryant VL, Dunstone A, Biben C, Taoudi S, Weber TS, Naik SH, Hadla A, Barker HE, Vandenberg CJ, Dall G, Scott CL, Moore Z, Whittle JR, Freytag S, Best SA, Papenfuss AT, Olechnowicz SWZ, MacRaild SE, Wilcox S, Hickey PF, Amann-Zalcenstein D, Bowden R. A risk-reward examination of sample multiplexing reagents for single cell RNA-Seq. Genomics. 2024;116(2):10.1016/j.ygeno.2024.110793

Whittle JR, Vaillant F, Surgenor E, Heitink L, Muttiah C, Visvader JE, Lindeman GJ. Abstract IA26: Exploring breast cancer vulnerabilities through apoptotic pathways. Cancer Research. 2024;84(3_Supplement_1):10.1158/1538-7445.advbc23-ia26

Moffet J, Fatunla O, Whittle J, Jordan J, Roberts-Thomson S, Pavenko A, Scoville D, Zhang L, Liang Y, Morokoff A, Freytag S, Best S. TMIC-36. SPATIAL ARCHITECTURE OF HIGH-GRADE GLIOMA REVEALS TUMOR HETEROGENEITY WITHIN DISTINCT DOMAINS. Neuro-Oncology. 2023;25(Supplement_5):10.1093/neuonc/noad179.1102

Lu T, Freytag L, Narayana VK, Moore Z, Oliver SJ, Valkovic A, Nijagal B, Peterson AL, de Souza DP, McConville MJ, Whittle JR, Best SA, Freytag S. Matrix Selection for the Visualization of Small Molecules and Lipids in Brain Tumors Using Untargeted MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry Imaging. Metabolites. 2023;13(11):10.3390/metabo13111139

Sharma S, Chung C-Y, Uryu S, Petrovic J, Cao J, Rickard A, Nady N, Greasley S, Johnson E, Brodsky O, Khan S, Wang H, Wang Z, Zhang Y, Tsaparikos K, Chen L, Mazurek A, Lapek J, Kung P-P, Sutton S, Richardson PF, Greenwald EC, Yamazaki S, Jones R, Maegley KA, Bingham P, Lam H, Stupple AE, Kamal A, Chueh A, Cuzzupe A, Morrow BJ, Ren B, Carrasco-Pozo C, Tan CW, Bhuva DD, Allan E, Surgenor E, Vaillant F, Pehlivanoglu H, Falk H, Whittle JR, Newman J, Cursons J, Doherty JP, White KL, MacPherson L, Devlin M, Dennis ML, Hattarki MK, De Silva M, Camerino MA, Butler MS, Dolezal O, Pilling P, Foitzik R, Stupple PA, Lagiakos HR, Walker SR, Hediyeh-Zadeh S, Nuttall S, Spall SK, Charman SA, Connor T, Peat TS, Avery VM, Bozikis YE, Yang Y, Zhang M, Monahan BJ, Voss AK, Thomas T, Street IP, Dawson S-J, Dawson MA, Lindeman GJ, Davis MJ, Visvader JE, Paul TA. Discovery of a highly potent, selective, orally bioavailable inhibitor of KAT6A/B histone acetyltransferases with efficacy against KAT6A-high ER+ breast cancer. Cell Chemical Biology. 2023;30(10):10.1016/j.chembiol.2023.07.005

Lasocki A, Buckland ME, Molinaro T, Xie J, Whittle JR, Wei H, Gaillard F. Correlating MRI features with additional genetic markers and patient survival in histological grade 2-3 IDH-mutant astrocytomas. Neuroradiology. 2023;65(8):10.1007/s00234-023-03175-0

Lab research projects

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