Cancer Cachexia Clinic and Research Integration Program (CaXI)

CaXI Research Lead – Associate Professor Louise Cheng

Associate Professor Louise Cheng is a developmental biologist and internationally recognised leader in inter-organ crosstalk. Her lab utilises fruit fly Drosophila models of cancer cachexia to study how tumour secreted factors can cause muscle and fat wasting. Her vision for this program is to bring together a multi-disciplinary team to better understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie cancer cachexia, and improve clinical diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

CaXI Clinical Lead – Professor Brian Le 

Professor Brian Le is a Medical Oncologist and Palliative Care Physician, and works full time as a clinician. He is Director of Palliative and Supportive Care across the Parkville precinct (Peter Mac, Royal Melbourne and Royal Women's hospitals), has published over 100 peer reviewed scientific papers and book chapters, and has been awarded over $8.2M in competitive research-grant funding.

Associate Professor Andrew Cox

Cancer-associated cachexia is a common feature of liver cancer, and occurs in around half of these patients. Associate Professor Andrew Cox’s laboratory has developed and characterized a novel spontaneous liver cancer model in zebrafish that develops cachexia. Importantly, their cachexia model exhibits wasting phenotypes associated with tumour progression and poorer survival. The insights gained through their studies will help to identify sensitive biomarkers of cachexia and the possibility of new strategies to treat cachexia.

Associate Professor Benjamin Parker

Associate Professor Benjamin Parker leads the Metabolic Proteomics and Signal Transduction Lab in the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Melbourne. His research team is focused on understanding how genetic variants and signal transduction regulate metabolism with the goal of identifying new therapeutic targets to treat metabolic diseases. His research aims to develop circulating biomarkers for cancer cachexia using proteomic techniques.

Professor Linda Denehy

Professor Linda Denehy is Professor of Physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne, and a registered Physiotherapist. She has a joint appointment as Professor of Health Services Research: Allied Health at Peter Mac. Professor Denehy is an experienced rehabilitation researcher and is considered a world expert in rehabilitation, being in the top 0.1% of scholars internationally. Her research team (CanREX, supporting recovery and exercise) undertakes research predominately in patients with cancer across the continuum of cancer survivorship.

Dr Lara Edbrooke

Dr Lara Edbrooke is a registered physiotherapist who holds the positions of Allied Health Research Development lead at Peter Mac, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Her clinical, doctoral and post-doctoral work focuses on rehabilitation for people with cancer, including populations at high-risk of cancer cachexia.

Dr Hyun Ko

Dr Hyun Ko is a German and Australian board-certified radiologist with 20+ years of clinical experience in oncology, body, breast and paediatric imaging with a research focus in precision and personalised medicine utilising AI tools and radiomics. She strongly believes that translational and multidisciplinary research will play a pivotal role in effectively treating patients affected by the devastating condition of cancer cachexia.