Dr Brett Hollier

PhD (Queensland University of Technology)

Dr Brett Hollier is an early career researcher investigating the mechanisms that mediate cancer metastasis. In particular, his research focuses on the Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF) family and the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program. Dr Hollier’s research focus is to better define the EMT program operating in cancer and its relevance to metastasis in order to identify novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets of EMT to better prognosticate and treat aggressive forms of cancer. Dr Hollier was awarded a PhD in April 2008, in which he described for the first time the critical signalling events and transcriptional networks responsible for cancer cell migration induced by novel growth factor complexes. He conducted postdoctoral training at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX, USA) investigating the role of embryonic transcription factors in EMT, cancer stem cells and metastasis. During this 2 year training he was awarded a Susan G Komen for the Cure® Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, which resulted in 6 peer reviewed articles in high impact international journals, 1 book chapter and 1 provisional patent application. He returned to Australia in late 2010 where he initiated an independent research laboratory at QUT. In 2012, he joined the APCRC-Q where he leads the Invasion and Metastasis laboratory. To date he has published 20 peer reviewed articles, including 15 original journal articles, 2 invited reviews, 1 invited commentary and 2 book chapters. He is an author on a further 8 manuscripts currently in final preparation or under review (4 as senior author). He is also an inventor on 3 patent applications and has held supervisory responsibilities for 2 postdoctoral researchers, 10 PhD students (4 Primary and 6 Associate) and 2 International exchange students. Dr Hollier currently holds a 3 year QLD Smart Futures Fund Fellowship (2012-2015) to design smarter targeted therapies for cancer progression and is excited about the future opportunities to extend his research in these fields. In recognition of his research and his rapidly emerging national and international profile in the fields of Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) biology and mechanisms of  cancer metastasis, particularly the EMT program, he has been invited and presented his findings at both national and international conferences as well as external research institutes.

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