Biography

Dr Tara Roberts completed her PhD in 2005 at The Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland focussing on the biology of toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) mediated responses to CpG DNA. During her my first postdoctoral appointment she continued working on TLR9 responses and also identified the HIN-200 protein, AIM2 as a receptor and p202 as an antagonist of inflammasome activation in response to cytosolic double-stranded DNA. She was awarded an NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellowship in 2007 and moved to The Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Here she commenced work examining the role that inflammation plays in disease development and progression. The main part of this work focuses on the role that the protein SMG1 plays in regulating inflammation, stress responses and carcinogenesis. The second part involves examination of the role of inflammation in the development of the neurodegenerative disease Ataxia-Telangiectasia. In 2014 she accepted a Cancer Institute New South Wales Future Research Leader Fellowship to start work at The Ingham Institute and University of Western Sydney. This role involved the establishment of a new research group 'Cancer and Inflammation'. This group utilises molecular and cellular biology techniques and analysis of animal models and patient samples to understand how certain mutations change the biology of cancer cells with the aim of exploiting these differences to improve patient treatment.

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