2021 - 2024

Beata joined the lab in 2021 as a PhD student supervised by Alex and Dan. Beata played a seminal role in the development of the Breast Cancer Major Atlas. Her project applied various single cell technologies to build a breast cancer cellular atlas. Beata investigated the mechanisms underlying therapy resistance and relapse in patients with Luminal cancers. Beata is a keen cyclist and since living in Australia her new passion is hiking. After submitting her thesis, Beata joined the Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratory at the University, directed by Professor Wayne Tilley, as a bioinformatician.

2024 - 2025

Marion joined the lab as an Masters student. Her thesis focused on integrating cell morphology and spatial context to predict gene module enrichment from histology images. Marion completed her masters degree in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at ETH in Zurich, where she leveraged her expertise in computational methods to advance the understanding of tumor microenvironment organization. After successfully completing her masters, Marion stayed on in the lab as a computational research assistant, continuing to work on her project, before returning to Europe to work as a bioinformatician. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and bouldering.

2010 - 2024

Dan was a Senior Research Officer in the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a conjoint lecturer at UNSW Sydney. He has a background in chemistry, computing and bioinformatics and completed his PhD at UCL, in London, under the supervision of Prof. David Jones, followed by postdoctoral work at the Garvan. His research focussed on the use of computational and cellular genomics to understand the regulatory processes driving tumour heterogeneity and treatment outcome. During his time in the lab, Dan lead the Breast Cancer Atlas project and supervised multiple PhD students.

2020-2024

Tony completed his PhD in 2024. His project aimed to further understanding of the spatial biology of metastatic breast cancer (mBC). mBC is a highly heterogeneous disease with an extremely poor prognosis and limited management methods. He used cutting-edge spatial technologies such as Nanostring DSP and Visium as well as single-cell RNA sequencing to comprehensively tackle the heterogeneity of mBC and find better treatment strategies for patients. Tony left the lab at the end of 2024 to pursue a postdoc with Dr David Quigley at UCSF.

2018-2024

Eva undertook her honours and PhD in the lab, completing her studies in early 2024. She used single-cell profiling technologies to investigate how cellular composition and transcriptional heterogeneity in localised prostate cancer affect tumour biology and patient clinical outcome. Rollerblading and kickboxing are her favourite pastimes.

2017-2023

During his PhD, Gammy specialised in the development and application of single-cell methodologies for the profiling of immune cells. He co-developed the first high throughput single-cell method capable of profiling the full-length receptors of both T-cell and B-cells along with their transcriptome using long-read sequencers. His work in phenotyping has been implemented towards spatial technologies, where combined with single-cell multimodal technologies, he investigated the cellular immune ecotypes of melanoma and breast cancers.

Gammy is now a postdoctoral fellow with Aziz Al’Khafaji and Nir Hacohen at the Broad Institute of MIT

2022-2023

Joakim Lundeberg, Ph.D., is a co-founder of Science for Life Laboratory Sweden. He was a visiting scientist in the Swarbrick lab between 2022 and 2023. In recent years, he has been focused on spatial transcriptomics technologies that enable a detailed description of gene expression patterns in tissue sections. Dr. Lundeberg has publications demonstrating the development of the technology but also examples of the impact of spatial analysis in biology. The current research focuses on expanding the spatial modalities and developing new software tools and applications in human cell atlas, neurology, and cancer.

2014-2022

Niantao worked as a postdoctoral bioinformatician in the lab. During his time, his research focused on understanding breast cancer patients’ response to treatment using single cell sequencing technologies. He has received funding from National Breast Cancer Foundation and Cancer Australia to support his research. He is now a Senior Data Scientist at ProCan Cancer Data Science Group where he is continuing his research in cancer genomics to study across multiple types of cancers.

2017-2021

Sunny Wu recently completed his PhD in in the Swarbrick lab in 2020. During his PhD, Sunny received the 2019 Gabrielle Murphy Prize for Tumour Microenvironment Research, Australian society for Immunology; 2019 St Vincent’s Clinical School UNSW International Travel Award; 2018 EMBL International Travel Award; 2018 Australasian Genomic Technologies Association Domestic Travel Award; 2021 Received Dean’s commendation for Outstanding PhD Thesis. 4 invited seminars. Co-inventor on 2 provisional patent applications.

Sunny commended a postdoctoral fellowship in the Turley Lab, Genentech, in December 2021.

2019-2021

Nenad Bartonicek worked as a computational postdoc in the Swarbrick lab. In 2021 secured a position as lead bioinformatician at biotech startup at Cesar Australia (Melbourne).

2015-2020

Simon Junankar worked as a postdoc in tumour immunology, funded by a grant from the NBCF as CIA.

Simon is now Scientific Affairs Director at AliveX Biotech

2014-2018

Holly Holliday was a PhD student, working on transcription factors in breast development. This was followed by 2 years as a postdoc (2018-2020) working on the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. In 2020, she took up a postdoctoral position at the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia, to continue her interest in peadiatric oncology.

James Torpy completed his PhD in 2021 in bioinformatics, under the supervision of Dr Nenad Bartonicek. James left the lab in 2021 to pursue a postdoc with Dr Leonard Goldstein.

Nicola worked as a research assistant and animal technician in the Swarbrick lab from 2012 to 2020. She then moved to the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute where she works as a Technical Officer.

Aurelie Cazet joined my lab as a Postdoctoral fellow in 2012. She was a Co-team Leader of the “Translational Prostate Cancer Research Program Grant” from Movember ($3,000,000) and CIA on peer-reviewed project grant from St Vincent’s Foundation. Aurelie moved into Pharma and is now the national senior breast cancer MSL for AstraZeneca. She works across strategy, preclinical research and clinical trials.

Vanina joined the lab in 2017 to work as a research assistant an anima technician. In 2019, Vanina joined the lab of Professor Christine Chaffer, to continue her work as a research assistant.

Andrea managed the group’s small animal research from 2008 to 2019. She is now a director of ‘Small talk events’ and trains new animal technicians at TAFE.

Laura completed her PhD in the lab in the role of transcription factors in breast cancer, and is now a Senior Consultant at ACIL Allen Consulting.

Eoin was a PhD student in the Swarbrick lab from 2014-2017, investigating the use of microRNAs as a therapeutic approach in neuroblastoma.

Iva Nikolic was a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory from 2012-2015. She then joined the Victorian Centre for Functional genomics as deputy head of the VCFG under Kaylene Simpson. In 2019 she moved to biotech Onko-Innate as Director of Functional Genomics.

Chia-Ling was a research assistant in the Swarbrick Lab from 2016-2018, where she applied her extensive expertise in molecular and sequencing technologies to a variety of different projects. Chia-Ling joined the Garvan Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics as a technical research specialist in 2019.

Radhika Nair was a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory from 2011-2015. In this time she was a Co-team Leader of the “Translational Prostate Cancer Research Program Grant” from the PCFA/Movember ($3,000,000). Radhika returned to India as the Ramanujan Fellow in the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram and was appointed to faculty in 2018.

Radhika is now a faculty member in the Centre for Human Genetics, Bangalore India

Wee conducted his Honours and PhD in the Swarbrick lab, graduating in 2013

Wee is now a product manager at A-Dec devices

Yuwei Graduated from the Lab in 2013, after studying the role of microRNA in cancer.

Yuwei is now a senior forensic scientist at the Health Sciences Authority Singapore.

Suny graduated from the lab in 2013.