Louise van der Weyden, BSc (Hons), PhD
Senior Staff Scientist
My research focus is on understanding the genetics of cancer, using a combination of genomic studies, mouse models and comparative oncology approaches.
Understanding the genetics of cancer
I completed a BSc (Biomedical Science) at the University of Sydney, Australia with 1st Class Honours and the University Medal in 1997. I then completed a PhD in cancer biology at the University of Sydney in 2001, before starting as a post-doctoral fellow in Professor Allan Bradley’s Lab at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. During my time at the Sanger Institute, I have been fortunate to have been awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council CJ Martin & RG Menzies Fellowship (Australia) in 2002, an Intermediate Fellowship from the Kay Kendall Leukaemia Foundation (UK) in 2007 and become a William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation Scholar (USA) in 2014. In 2017, I was awarded the University of Technology Alumni Award for Excellence (Faculty of Science).
My research passion has always been investigations into the genetics of cancer, using both sequencing technologies and the generation of mouse models to identify and characterise novel driver genes of cancer and metastasis, with a particular interest in melanoma and other skin cancers. More recently, I have become involved in comparative oncology, studying spontaneously developed cancer in animals, both as alternative models of human cancer and for the benefit of the animals themselves.
My timeline
Editorial Board, Veterinary Sciences
Associate Editor, Journal of Pathology
University of Technology (UTS) Alumni Award for Excellence 2017 - Faculty of Science
William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation (WGFRF) Scholar
Senior Staff Scientist (Adams Lab, WTSI)
Kay Kendall Leukaemia Foundation Intermediate Fellowship
Post-doctoral fellow (Adams Lab, WTSI)
NHMRC (Australia) CJ Martin & RG Menzies Fellowship
Post-doctoral fellow (Bradley Lab, WTSI)
PhD, University of Sydney (Australia)
BSc (Hons), University of Technology, Sydney (Australia) [Winner of the University Medal for the Faculty of Science, 1997]