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About

Dr Sarah Best is a Laboratory Head and fundamental biology lead in the Brain Cancer Research Lab. In this position, Sarah brings her expertise from multiple solid tumours to tackle the challenges of brain cancer.

After completing her PhD on breast cancer at WEHI, Sarah moved to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston to study tumour suppressor genes in squamous non-melanoma skin cancer. In 2016, Sarah returned to WEHI to work on precision therapies for KEAP1-mutant lung cancer. In 2018, Sarah was awarded the Griffith University Discovery Award (Research Australia) for her work on biomarkers for KEAP1-mutant lung cancer.

In 2021, Sarah was appointed to Laboratory Head, co-leading the Brain Cancer Research Laboratory with Dr Jim Whittle (clinical lead) and Dr Saskia Freytag (bioinformatics lead) in the newly established Brain Cancer Centre at WEHI.

Sarah has been supported by Carrie’s Beanies for Brain Cancer (CB4BC), the Victorian Cancer Agency, Cancer Australia, Cancer Council Victoria, MRFF and NHMRC.

Publications

Selected publications from Dr Sarah Best

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

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

Ng J, Pan E, Johnston A, Ribera NT, Kersbergen A, Hess JB, Best SA, Tsui E, Steinfort D, Sutherland KD. A Multiplexed Approach to Assess Small Cell Lung Cancer Subtype Heterogeneity in Primary and Patient-Derived Tumor Samples. Methods in Molecular Biology. 2024;2806:10.1007/978-1-0716-3858-3_10

McDonald JA, Boyd D, Diepstraten S, Scott L, Tai L, Kueh A, Burr M, Best SA, Herold MJ, Sutherland KD. Abstract A043: Identifying critical vulnerabilities that sensitise Lkb1 -mutant lung adenocarcinoma to T cell mediated killing. Cancer Immunology Research. 2023;11(12_Supplement):10.1158/2326-6074.tumimm23-a043

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

Dewdney B, Jenkins MR, Best SA, Freytag S, Prasad K, Holst J, Endersby R, Johns TG. From signalling pathways to targeted therapies: unravelling glioblastoma’s secrets and harnessing two decades of progress. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2023;8(1):10.1038/s41392-023-01637-8

Boudra R, Patenall BL, King S, Wang D, Best SA, Ko JY, Xu S, Padilla MG, Schmults CD, Barthel SR, Lian CG, Ramsey MR. PRMT1 Inhibition Selectively Targets BNC1-Dependent Proliferation, but not Migration in Squamous Cell Carcinoma. 2023;4(04-07):10.1101/2023.03.27.533164

Moffet JJD, Moore Z, Oliver SJ, Towers T, Jenkins MR, Freytag S, Whittle JR, Best SA. Flow Cytometry Identification of Cell Compartments in the Murine Brain. Methods in Molecular Biology. 2023;2691:10.1007/978-1-0716-3331-1_14

Lab research projects

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