ROCK-INDUCED EARLY-ONSET BOWEL CANCER PROGRESSION
Professor Michael Samuel
Head, Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory
Centre for Cancer Biology
SA Pathology and University of South Australia &
Principal Investigator at the Cancer Mechanotherapies Laboratory,
Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Adelaide, South Australia | January 2025
Michael Samuel is a cell biologist whose research interest is in understanding how cancer mechanobiology influences the tumour microenvironment, thereby promoting tumour progression. He is Professor of Matrix Biology at the University of South Australia, Adelaide and heads the Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology and the Cancer Mechanotherapies Laboratory at the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research.
He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in 2004, working with Prof. Matthias Ernst at the Ludwig Institute. He then joined the laboratory of Prof. Mike Olson at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, with whom he identified the role of the Rho-ROCK signalling pathway in regulating tumour-promoting mechanical properties of the dermal extracellular matrix. He returned to Australia in 2012 to join the Centre for Cancer Biology as a Laboratory Head.
Discoveries from his laboratory include a role for the ER-stress protein CRELD2 in the recruitment and education of cancer-associated fibroblasts and the roles of Rho-ROCK signalling in the tumour immune microenvironment. He has been awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, an Emerging Leader Award by the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology (2020), the Barry Preston Award for leadership in the field, by the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand (2021) and the Australian Breast Cancer Fellowship by The Hospital Research Foundation (2023).
In April 2024, Bowel Cancer Australia announced a team led by Professor Michael Samuel as the successful applicant for a three-year AUD$600k early-onset bowel cancer research project through the 2023 round of Cancer Australia’s Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme (PdCCRS).
Professor Samuel of the Centre for Cancer Biology (an alliance between the University of South Australia and SA Pathology) and the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research are investigating ROCK-induced early-onset bowel cancer progression.
His team will also be examining whether proteins that interact with ROCK cause early-onset bowel cancer progression, and if they do, targeting these proteins would be a way of stopping ROCK from accelerating tumour growth.
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Influence of gut microbes and inflammation on brain function and behaviour in autism
Third-year PhD candidate Angela Jimenez is part of the Gut-Brain Axis Laboratory at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Angela holds a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience (Honours) from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and her doctoral research is currently supported by the RMIT–Mexico International Scholarship program.
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CASE STUDY High blood pressure and shorter sleep may worsen brain decline
People with high blood pressure who also lack sleep may be at increased risk of reduced cognitive performance and greater brain injury, Monash University research has found.
Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers assessed whether the combined effect of hypertension and short sleep duration had a negative impact on brain health.
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Investigating new approaches to target plaque inflammation in atherosclerosis
Associate Professor Peter Psaltis is an Academic Interventional Cardiologist who holds Level 2 NHMRC Career Development and National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowships. He has Faculty positions within the University of Adelaide, Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN) and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). Within SAHMRI, he is the Co-Theme Leader of the Lifelong Health, Program Leader of Heart and Vascular Health and Co-director of the Vascular Research Centre in the Lifelong Health Theme.
