Research: Centre for Immune and Targeted Therapy

Associate Professor Andrew Nicol (MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FRCPA)

Associate Professor Andrew Nicol has been undertaking laboratory-based research into manipulation of human haemopoietic and immune cells for clinical purposes for over 10 years, in addition to his long standing clinical trial activity in this field.

Associate Professor Nicol also has clinical experience in allogeneic and autologous stem cell transplantation for haemopoietic malignancies. It is this combination of basic laboratory expertise, clinical research experience in cell based therapies involving immune system manipulation and clinical expertise in standard cell based therapies which ensures the continued success of the CITT in its primary aims of high quality research output and sustained long-term funding.

Associate Professor Andrew Nicol

Associate Professor A. Raja Choudhury (M.Sc, PhD)

Associate Professor A. Raja Choudhury has recently moved to CIIT from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden which is recognized worldwide as the host institution for the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He is the Head of Cancer Reseach and is responsible for overseeing the laboratory operations and generation of cell therapy products

Dr. Raja Choudhury has more than 20 years of experience in research on immunology and immunotherapy of cancers. He has authored more than 50 scientific papers, book chapters and treatises.  He is a member of several scientific societies and the editorial board of two scientific journals. In addition to developing cell therapy products, Dr. Choudhury has also initiated a basic research program on tumour immunology and immunotherapy.

Associate Professor A. Raja Choudhury

Ms. Amanda Valuks

After gaining her Bachelor of Applied Science, (Medical Science) Mandy worked in several pathology laboratories. When assisting Dr Nicol in bone marrow procedures Mandy became interested in immunotherapy and the research Dr Nicol was performing and joined CITT as a Research Assistant in 2007. She is now involved in culturing immune cells for the treatment of patients with cancers, peripheral blood monitoring of patients on clinical trials and data collection and analysis.

Mandy and Tomomi both enjoy the interaction they have with the patients and other staff, such as The Clinical Trials Unit, Day Oncology Unit and other research groups that The Gallipoli Medical Research Centre provides.

Tomomi Hagi

After completing her Bachelor of Science, Ms Hagi was awarded the Masters of Science with Yokohama City University, Japan. Ms Hagi then came to Australia to work as a research assistant with Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), gaining experience in preparation of dendritic cell vaccine, immunological assessment and was trained in Good Manufacturing Practice procedures.

At the Centre for Immune and Targeted therapy, in her role as research officer, Ms Hagi is primarily involved in the preparation of immune cell vaccines, immune monitoring and data analysis for clinical trials. Tomomi enjoys the opportunity to participate in bench to bedside research.

Ms. Amanda Valuks

Tomomi Hagi

Ms. Nadia Floden

Nadia is our new doctoral student. She graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Queensland (UQ), with double majors in Molecular Biology and Microbiology. In 2009 she completed Honours in Prof. Michael Water’s laboratory for Growth Hormone and Cytokine Signalling at the IMB, with a project on growth hormone receptor possibly involved in cancer.  This lead to a fascination with cell biology and disease, particularly cancers. Following an interest in the clinical side of medical research, she has since has commenced a PhD at the CITT investigating the clinical potential of immunomodulatory drugs and combining immune and chemo therapies to target cancer.

Ms. Nadia Floden