Nikolas Haass

Biography

Nikolas Haass is a Professor at The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute/Translational Research Institute, Honorary Associate Professor at The University of Sydney and Adjunct Associate Faculty member at the Centenary Institute. After obtaining his PhD at the German Cancer Research Center/ Heidelberg University, he trained as a dermatologist with a focus on cutaneous oncology at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. He then spent five years at the Wistar Institute (University of Pennsylvania) in Philadelphia, as a post-doctoral fellow funded by the German Research Foundation. As a Cameron Melanoma Research Fellow from October 2007 to February 2013, he headed the group, ‘Experimental Melanoma Therapy’ at the Centenary Institute. In March 2013 he commenced his current position at UQDI. Using cutting-edge technology, such as real-time imaging of melanoma cells in 3D culture and in vivo, he and his team investigate the biology of tumour heterogeneity and the role of differential subpopulations of melanoma cells in melanomagenesis with the goal to develop novel therapeutic approaches by simultaneously targeting these differential subpopulations.   

Research Interest

 Prof Nikolas Haass is a clinician scientist specializing in skin cancers. His interests is the understanding of (1) cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions of melanoma with its microenvironment (2) signalling pathways in melanoma, particularly with regards to identifying novel melanoma therapies and (3) the characterization of melanoma cell subpopulations. The techniques he uses include several three-dimensional cell culture models, which recreate the correct interactions of the melanoma with its tumour microenvironment and thus predict the effects of drugs on the tumour in a much better way than the conventional two-dimensional cell culture models. For his mouse models his team applies cutting-edge intravital multi-photon microscopy.