Joan Heath

Biography

I received my undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, England. My PhD studies were also conducted in Cambridge at the Strangeways Research Laboratory where I analyzed the role of interactions between osteoblasts and osteoclasts and the role of matrix metalloproteinases in bone resorption. I then embarked on post-doctoral training in the field of bone biology and osteoporosis research, first with Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories in West Point, Pennsylvania, USA, and then in Australia, where I held a University of Melbourne CR Roper Fellowship at St. Vincent’s Institute for Medical Research from 1990-1993. In 1994, I joined the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne and switched my focus to colon cancer, becoming co-head of the Colon Molecular and Cell Biology laboratory in 1998. Shortly after this I adopted the zebrafish as a vertebrate model in which to discover genes with functions in intestinal development that also might be critical for the development and progression of colon cancer. My group’s positional cloning of the underlying genes in many of these mutants has drawn attention to a group of information-processing genes that are essential for the growth and survival of intestinal epithelial cells. Our current focus is to determine whether these genes contribute to colon tumorigenesis using loss-of-function mouse models and analysis of human colon cancer transcriptomes. Currently I am a member of the Ludwig Institute, and my laboratory is based at the ACRF Chemical Biology Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Research Interest

Bone biology, colon cancer, cancer genetics