LIVER CANCER & PATIENT-DERIVED TUMOUR ORGANOIDS

With
Dr Benjamin Dwyer,
Senior Research Fellow &
Director, Western Australian Organioid Innovation Hub,
Curtin Medical Research Institute,
Curtin University, Western Australia

RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Western Australia | February 2026

Dr Benjamin Dwyer is a translational cancer researcher driven by a clear purpose: to ensure discoveries made in the laboratory genuinely improve outcomes for patients.

Based at Curtin University, he established and now leads the organoid platform within the Liver Cancer Collaborative and directs the WA Organoid Innovation Hub, working at the intersection of biology, medicine and biotechnology to accelerate new treatments for liver cancer.

After completing his PhD in Perth, Dr Dwyer joined the world-leading liver research group of Prof Stuart Forbes at the University of Edinburgh, where he contributed to research spanning fundamental biology, clinical trials and commercial translation. He helped define how cholangiocarcinoma crosstalk with macrophages establishes a protective environment. In parallel, he was closely involved in the development of macrophage cell therapy for cirrhosis as part of the management team of the MATCH trials, and established novel, GMP-compatible methods to engineer and cryopreserve therapeutic macrophages, foundational methods for the commercial development of macrophage therapy.  He was part of the founding team of a biotechnology spinout created to translate this work, and the therapeutic strategy built on those early methods is now progressing through Phase 1 clinical testing. Seeing principles he helped establish move from bench to bedside has been a defining milestone in his career.

Today, as part of the Liver Cancer Collaborative his research focuses on building patient-derived “mini tumours” for drug development that better predict treatment response, narrowing the gap between laboratory models and real patient outcomes.

COLLABORATIONS WITH:
Perkins Cancer Biobank, Australian Centre for RNA Therapeutics in Cancer, UWA, WA Data Science Innovation Hub, Murdoch University, Epichem, Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Australia WEHI National Drug Discovery Centre, Inventia Life Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS), University of Calgary

FUNDING FROM:
Department of Health WA FHRI Fund, Cancer Research Trust, Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA), Ian Potter Foundation, AMMF- The Cholangiocarcinoma Charity,

Source: Supplied and adapted