Emma Nolan 34th Lorne Cancer Conference 2022

Emma Nolan

Emma obtained her PhD in 2017 from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the University of Melbourne. Under the supervision of Professor Jane Visvader and Professor Geoff Lindeman, she identified a novel pathway that is hyperactivated in the breast epithelium of women harbouring mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1. Inhibition of this pathway significantly delayed tumour onset in murine models, a discovery that catalysed the first international phase III breast cancer prevention trial for BRCA1-mutation carriers. For her PhD research, Emma was awarded the University of Melbourne Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence, the Corcoran Award for best PhD completed at WEHI in 2017 as well as the prestigious Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research. Emma began her Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2017 at the Francis Crick Institute in London, in the laboratory of Dr Ilaria Malanchi. Her research focusses on the dynamics and evolution of the tumour microenvironment during metastatic outgrowth. She recently discovered a novel interaction between neutrophils and resident lung epithelial cells following tissue injury, a relationship which inadvertently fosters the growth of metastatic cancer cells. In 2022, Emma will be joining the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she will establish patient-derived 3D breast tumour organoid models to study cancer-stromal cell crosstalk.