Supporting the clinical community
Our Program is mediated by the Pathology Team in the School of Medicine and Dentistry and aims to support the clinical community by contributing to research, clinical service and education. The multidisciplinary research team has strong collaborations with national and international research centres in Asia-Pacific regions and Europe and more than 200 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters have been published by the team.
Clinical Services
The School of Medicine and Dentistry provides a unique opportunity for clinicians and scientists to collaborate on medical research projects. The research team provides consultancy diagnostic pathology services to the clinical communities in Australia and overseas. The team members also provide service through Nexus Pathology which in turn provides resource and support for cancer molecular pathology research.
Thyroid cancer and endocrine tumours molecular pathology
Endocrine tumours affect mainly females and may have significant systemic effects. The morphologies of these cancers are diverse and making a definite diagnosis often needs the works of specialists. In addition, the behaviour of these lesions may not be predicted by clinicopathological features. Our research team works on genetic profiles, pathological classification and prognostic markers studies in thyroid and other endocrine lesions.
Colorectal cancer molecular pathology
Colorectal cancer is amongst the most common malignancy found in the Western world and usually ranks high in incidence and mortality among malignancies in those countries. Globally, colorectal cancers accounted for about 1 million new cases. There is evidence that research contributes directly to improve the care of patients with colorectal cancer by more accurately refining prognosis and selecting the most appropriate adjuvant therapy for individual patients with colorectal carcinoma. In order to do this, our research focuses on studying novel tissue-based prognostic indicators at the molecular level.
Oral, esophageal and head-neck cancer molecular pathology
Oral, esophageal and head/neck cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide with a global annual incidence of 500,000. This group of cancer is a heterogeneous group of cancers, with a variable, but usually poor prognosis in patients. Besides the poor outcome, head and neck cancer has a great impact on the patient’s quality of life, due to its anatomic location. Professor Lam’s research studies the group of cancers by animal experiments, cell line cultures, gene profiling and clinicopathological correlations in order to understand the biological behaviour and to reveal the underlying mechanisms of cancer progression and therapy resistance.
Basic research in cancer pathology and others
Professor Lam and the pathology team promotes, supports and accommodates basic research in cancer pathology and other health disciplines that can result in advances in medical knowledge and increase patient’s outcomes and quality of life.
Education
The Pathology research team is at the forefront of advances in medical research, education and professional practice and will provide up-to-the-minute learning environment for medical students, junior doctors and research scientists. Visiting doctors and scientists from overseas come to learn and contribute to research with the team. The team also maintains the Pathology museum as an educational resource to benefit members of the medical and health related disciplines. The research team members, Professor Alfred Lam, Dr Eugene Petcu and Dr Robert Smith, are happy to collaborate with other research groups and to enhance training opportunities for young researchers.