Dr Petranel Ferrao has extensive experience in the translational research area of cancer therapies. She completed her PhD from the University of Adelaide for research on “The individual and co-operative effects of the c-MYB and c-KIT oncogenes in murine haemopietic cells”; conducted at the Division of Haematology, Hanson Centre for Cancer Research, Adelaide.
She focussed her early post-doctoral training on translational projects investigating mechanisms of drug resistance to conventional chemotherapeutics and new targeted therapeutics for the treatment of leukaemia. As a Brawn Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle, her team reported on the response and resistance of various KIT mutants to the targeted therapeutic drug Imatinib (Glivec). Their early findings on this work contributed to advancing the clinical development of KIT inhibitor drugs for the treatment of KIT-driven malignancies such as GIST. She gained additional tertiary teaching and commercial experience with a start-up venture, while on a break from academic research. Dr Ferrao has built upon her early post-doctoral expertise in drug resistance, targeted therapies, receptor tyrosine kinases and signalling, to establish several translational projects on identifying predictors/biomarkers of treatment response for patient stratification and determining ways to overcome treatment resistance in melanoma, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and various haematological malignancies. Her longer term research vision is to improve therapy outcomes and patient survival rates by utilising novel predictors/biomarkers to define the most optimal treatment strategies for use in a personalised and precision manner.
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Petranel Ferrao's highlights
FEATURED Journal article
The transcription cofactor c-JUN mediates phenotype switching and BRAF inhibitor resistance in melanoma
Read morePetranel Ferrao's selected work
Projects
Displaying the 3 most recent projects by Petranel Ferrao.
Project Types
3
Research Grant
Scholarly Works
Displaying the 6 most recent scholarly works by Petranel Ferrao.
Credentials
Positions
Honorary
Surgery - Austin Health
Honorary
Clinical Pathology
Education
Bachelor of Science
Adelaide University
Bachelor of Science (Honours, first class)
Adelaide University
Doctor of Philosophy
Adelaide University