Lab Head

E: a.swarbrick(at)garvan.org.au

Bluesky: @alexswarbrick

About Alex

PhD Student

E: b.kiedik(at)garvan.org.au

X: @BeataKiedik

Beata joined the lab in 2021. In her project she will apply various single cell technologies to build a breast cancer cellular atlas. She will aim to further understand the mechanisms underlying therapy resistance and relapse in patients with Luminal cancers, hoping to translate the findings into the clinics. Beata is a keen cyclist and since living in Australia her new passion is hiking.

Research Assistant

E: c.chang(at)garvan.org.au

Cecilia is an experienced research assistant in the field of paediatric brain cancer; specifically using patient-derived cell lines in improving radio- sensitivity of DIPG. Cecilia joined the lab in 2022 to apply her expertise using spatial transcriptomics/genomics technology to better understand the molecular machinery that drives the aberrant changes at a single cell level contributing to the heterogeneity in breast cancer. Cecilia is hoping to further improve treatment for patients.

Senior Research Officer

E: d.roden(at)garvan.org.au

X: @daniel_l_roden

Dan is a Senior Research Officer in the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a conjoint lecturer at UNSW Sydney. He has a background in chemistry, computing and bioinformatics and completed his PhD at UCL, in London, under the supervision of Prof. David Jones, followed by postdoctoral work at the Garvan. His research focusses on the use of computational and cellular genomics to understand the regulatory processes driving tumour heterogeneity and treatment outcome.

Visiting Scientist

E: e.millar(at)garvan.org.au

Ewan is a senior staff specialist in the Department of Anatomical Pathology at St George Hospital Sydney and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. His research interests are in the development of new predictive and prognostic biomarkers for clinical breast cancer, artificial intelligence applications to digital pathology and tissue imaging.

Senior Research Officer

E: hani.kim(at)garvan.org.au

X: @hani_jieun

W: https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/hani-kim

Hani is a Senior Research Officer at the Swarbrick Lab and a conjoint lecturer at UNSW. She completed her undergraduate and graduate training at Imperial College London (UK) and Seoul National University (South Korea), followed by a PhD in Computational Biology at The University of Sydney. Her current research focuses on the development of state-of-the-art computational tools for the integration of high-dimensional single-cell and spatial multi-omics that propels discovery of new biological insight and clinically relevant solutions for breast cancer. She has developed a wide-range of bespoke computational software including CiteFuse, Cepo, PhosR, and Maxima.

Research Officer

E: hanyun.zhang(at)garvan.org.au

Hanyun was trained as a computational pathologist at the Institute of Cancer Research (UK) under the supervision of Prof. Yinyin Yuan and Dr. Erik Sahai. She has extensive experience on deep-learning-based cell identification and spatial statistics for deconvolving the immune cell distribution within the tumour microenvironment. Hanyun joined Alex’s lab in early 2024 with a research aim to further understand the function of diverse fibroblast populations across cancer types, inferring from their transcriptomic profiles and spatial arrangements. Hanyun enjoys playing badminton and watching animations during her spare time.

PhD Student

E: j.mo(at)garvan.org.au

X: @JeremyMedOnc

Jeremy is a Medical Oncologist who trained at Westmead Hospital and is now undertaking a PhD in cancer-associated fibroblasts across multiple cancer types. His project will involve analysis of the differences in these fibroblasts across pancreatic, prostate, breast cancers and melanoma. He hopes this will lead to investigating possible therapeutic agents and translation to clinical trials.

Lab Manager/Senior Research Assistant

E: j.yang(at)garvan.org.au

Jess joined the lab in 2011 and has worked on various projects over the years. More recently she has been involved in breast single cell, spatial technology and immunotherapy projects and is now working on establishing patient-derived breast cancer organoids. She loves all things cats and Taylor Swift!

Research Assistant

E: j.reeves(at)garvan.org.au

Bluesky: @johnyaku

John joined the lab in 2021 to work on bioinformatics projects, mainly in the area of spatial transcriptomics. He is also working on cataloguing and integrating the many datasets generated by the lab.

PhD Student

E: j.chen(at)garvan.org.au

Julia is a Medical Oncologist currently undertaking a PhD in stromal immunology in breast cancer. Her project investigates stromal regulators of immune response in triple negative breast cancer, and ways to target these to improve response to immunotherapy.

Senior Research Assistant/Clinical Research Coordinator

E: k.harvey(at)garvan.org.au

Starting in the Swarbrick lab in 2013, Kate kicked off the labs extensive breast cancer tissue and PDX biobanks. She specialises in managing clinical cohorts and collaborations, the collection and processing of patient tissue and data, and has a keen interest in tissue histology. She currently leads the wet lab side of cellular genomics with extensive knowledge in single cell preps from patient tissue and single cell RNA sequencing. She loves spending time in the kitchen and listening to music.

Clinical Research Nurse

E: k.saw(at)garvan.org.au

Kate joined the Swarbrick lab in 2023 as a Clinical Research Nurse. Utilising her experience in clinical trials and ability to interface with the clinical setting, Kate is working on various projects involving human tissue biobanking, clinical data collection and facilitating clinical collaborations. Kate has a keen interest in health equity and patient advocacy in research.

Research Officer

E: l.meital(at)garvan.org.au

Research Officer

E: l.baldwin(at)garvan.org.au

Bluesky: @louisebaldwin

Louise is a research officer, who recently submitted her PhD thesis. She joined the lab in 2017 with an interest in immuno-oncology. By examining tumours and matching draining lymph nodes from immunotherapy responsive and non-responsive mouse models at the single cell level, she hopes to further our understanding of response to immunotherapy in breast cancer. When not in the lab, Louise loves hiking, camping, swimming and sewing.

Medical Oncology Fellow and PhD Student

E: l.haggstrom(at)garvan.org.au

Dr Haggstrom is a medical oncology fellow who is currently undertaking a PhD at the Connie Johnson and Swarbrick Laboratories. She graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2017 with a Bachelor of Medical Studies / Doctor of Medicine and Bachelor of Science (Medicine). She was awarded First Class Honours, Pass with Distinction and the Prize for Medicine. During her PhD she will study the effects of antibody drug conjugates on the tumour microenvironment. Her hobbies include football, cooking, and swimming.

Program Manager

E: m.batten(at)garvan.org.au

Bluesky: @CancerEcoGarvan, @marcelbatten

Marcel has a PhD and extensive experience in research including postdoctoral training at Genentech Inc. San Francisco, leading an Immunology lab at the Garvan Institute and researching in the Immuno-Oncology space with the Melanoma Institute Australia. She is now the Cancer Ecosystems Program Manager and a Project Manager within the Swarbrick Lab. Marcel manages the larger collaborative projects, co-ordinates major grant applications,, assists with grant and financial management and is a great contact for potential academic or industry relationships.

Masters Student

E: m.motard(at)garvan.org.au

Marion is currently completing her master’s thesis within our lab, where she focuses on integrating cell morphology and spatial context to predict gene module enrichment from histology images. Pursuing a master’s degree in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at ETH in Zurich, she leverages her expertise in computational methods to advance the understanding of tumor microenvironment organization. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and bouldering.

Clinical Research Fellow

E: m.hui(at)garvan.org.au

Dr. Hui is a clinician-scientist who completed her PhD at the Garvan Institute in 2017. During her doctoral studies, she established cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) as a critical cell in the tumour microenvironment which drive chemoresistance in triple negative breast cancers that exhibit paracrine Hedgehog signalling. Importantly, she showed that therapeutic targeting of CAFs is effective and feasible in patients. Dr. Hui continues to be actively involved in translational cancer research at both the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse and Garvan Institute of Medical Research. She was recently awarded an investigator initiated grant from the National Breast Cancer Foundation to continue her research in therapeutic resistance in breast cancer.

Visiting Scientist

E: sanoto72(at)icloud.com

Sandra graduated in Medicine from UNSW with the University Medal in 1997 and finished her specialist training as a pathologist in 2003. After completing her PhD in 2008 at the Garvan Instutute of Medical Research, she spent 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is a Senior Staff Specialist in the Department of Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

Research Assistant

E: s.ramkomuth(at)garvan.org.au

Sonny is a computational biologist and is among the newest members of the Swarbrick lab. He holds a Master degree in Bioinformatics, completing a thesis in the Genomics and Machine Learning group of Dr Quan Nguyen at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences. He has extensive experience working with single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics data across a range of disease models. His research interests include the application of artificial intelligence for modelling biology at the cellular level, precision medicine, neuropsychiatric disease, and the science of longevity.

PhD Student

E: s.vanderleij(at)garvan.org.au

Sophie is a PhD student who started her PhD at the beginning of 2023. She has a keen interest in cancer biology and genomics and will be using spatial transcriptomics to resolve the complex cellular architecture of breast tumours. This spatial atlas project aims to provide a comprehensive picture of breast cancer, with samples spanning all breast cancer subtypes. In her spare time, Sophie likes to draw, go for hikes or visit the local beach.

Research Officer

E: t.ruan(at)garvan.org.au

Travis obtained his PhD from The University of Sydney studying the developmental process regulating human stem cells differentiating into skeletal muscle cells. He joined the Swarbrick Lab in 2021 and his research focuses on identifying key regulators of stromal-immune cell interaction using high throughput drug screening and CRISPR.

Research Assistant

E: v.liu(at)garvan.org.au

Victor joined the Swarbrick Lab in 2023, bringing with him a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics from University of Auckland (Waipapa Taumata Rau) under the supervision of Professor Justin O’Sullivan at the Liggins Institute. Outside the lab, Victor has a passion for grappling and music.