Associate Professor Daniel Gough, PASO Fellow
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths. I interrogate fundamental changes within the tumour and the interaction between the tumour and the immune system to inform new lung cancer therapies.
Areas of interest
Inflammation and cancer Lung cancer
Research group
Signal Transduction in Cancer Biology
Biography
Most lung cancer patients are treated with drugs that leverage the immune system to fight their cancer. While the initial response to these therapies is usually positive, over time patients almost always become resistant.
A/Prof Gough is a biochemist and cancer biologist with expertise in understanding fundamental mechanisms regulating tumour and immune signalling controlling cell function. He has made seminal findings defining the mechanisms controlling the altered metabolism in cancer and immune cells.
A/Prof Gough’s research provides critical insights into the tumour-immune ecosystem, with the goal of providing new treatment approaches. His research focus is on discovering how the disruption of intracellular signalling networks, primarily through the critical STAT family of proteins, drives lung cancer.
Fundamental biochemical alterations in tumours are defined in A/Prof Gough’s lab using sophisticated protein chemistry, functional genomics, molecular biology and drug screening. These are interrogated in pre-clinical models of lung cancer to identify targetable alterations.
A/Prof Gough’s research projects underway include
- Identifying mechanisms of platinum resistance and identifying drugs to combat resistant lung cancer.
- Defining the role(s) of the tumour-immune interaction in controlling primary and metastatic lung cancer.
A/Prof Gough works closely with clinical and commercial collaborators to identify new drugs for the treatment of lung cancer.
A/Prof Gough defined a mitochondrial and metabolic role for STAT3, which is necessary for cancers driven by Ras mutation, while completing his post-doctoral training at New York University, USA with Professor David E Levy (Dr Louis A. Schneider Professor of Molecular Pathology and Professor of Microbiology, and Associate Dean for Collaborative Science).
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