Aparna Jayachandran

Aparna Jayachandran
Research officer, Liver Cancer Unit, Gallipoli Medical Research Institute, Greenslopes Clinical School
The University of Queensland, Australia

Biography

Dr. Aparna Jayachandran’s expertise is in the research areas of cancer biology, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), cancer stem cells, and organ fibrosis. She obtained a PhD with Summa cum laude in Molecular Biology from the University of Giessen, Germany. During her PhD training, Dr Jayachandran successfully identified the role of TGF-beta signal transduction in EMT and its relevance to disease models of organ fibrosis. During her postdoctoral training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Melbourne, Australia, Dr Jayachandran has extended her knowledge on EMT process in tumor biology and gained new insights into embryonic development. Her research investigated whether melanoma cells can hijack the developmental EMT process to boost their motility. Her research has yielded new insights into determinants of the EMT process in melanoma progression and metastasis. In 2015, Dr Jayachandran has joined the Gallipoli Medical Research Institute & University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and is investigating the association between EMT, immune evasion and cancer stem cells so as to identify and develop druggable targets in liver cancer.