Nikola Bowden

Professor Nikola Bowden

Research Program:

Drug Repurposing and Medicines Research Program

Research Topics:

2018 Project Grant	2017 Project Grant	2017 Fellowship	2017 Project Grant	2017 Project Grant	2017 Project Grant	2016 Project Grant	2015 Project Grant	2015 Project Grant	2015 Travel Grant
2014 Project Grant	2014 Project Grant	2013 Project Grant	2012 Project Grant	2012 Scholarship	2007 Project Grant	2007 Project Grant

About
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What are your research interests?

Testing old chemotherapy drugs in new ways to treat melanoma and ovarian cancer patients who are resistant to treatment.
Developing a test that can be used to determine if a ovarian cancer patient has responded to their chemotherapy
Investigating how UV-light damages DNA and causes melanomas to develop. If we know how UV causes a melanoma we can either reverse it or try to prevent it.

Why did you get into research?

I have always loved being a problem-solver. Ever since I was in high school I got really excited about being given a complex maths, physics or chemistry problem and using what we had been taught to figure out the answer. Medical research is essentially the same thing, we find a big problem - for example, cancer becoming resistant to chemotherapy - and we take all the knowledge we have to think about how we could stop that happening or how we could reverse it. There is nothing more exciting than piecing together data and seeing the answer start to appear.

What would be the ultimate goal for your research?

Our ultimate goal would be to see all cancer patients have a treatment that works for them. Not necessarily a cure, but treatments that allow people to live long and happy lives, even if that means living with their cancer. We have reached our ultimate goal if people die with their cancer rather than because of it.

Brief Profile

Professor Nikola Bowden is the DNA Repair Group Leader and a Cancer Institute NSW Career Development Fellow in the Cancer Research Program of HMRI. She holds a PhD in Medical Genetics and B. Biomedical Science (Hons) from the University of Newcastle. Associate Professor Bowden leads a team of research staff, students and clinicians who are working together to use traditional chemotherapy in new ways to treat melanoma and ovarian cancer. Her team has also made major contributions towards understanding why melanomas develop from excessive UV-light exposure and were the first to find the DNA repair does not work well in melanomas.

Professor Bowden is Chair of the Australian Academy of Science Early-Mid Career Researcher Forum and was awarded a prestigious NSW Young Tall Poppy Award in 2015. Prior to this she was the University of Newcastle Young Alumni of the Year in 2011 and HMRI Pulse Prize recipient in 2006. Her team has received funding from the NHMRC, Cancer Institute NSW, Cancer Australia, Cure Cancer Australia, Ramaciotti Foundation, HMRI, Hunter Melanoma Foundation, Supporters of Cancer, the McGuigan Family, the Cameron Family, Oxfords Hockey Club and HMRI Life Governor Jennie Thomas.

The DNA repair team is working towards using old chemotherapies to damage the DNA of tumours just enough that the patient’s immune system will recognise the damage and and kill the tumour. The overall aim is to reduce the amount of chemotherapy patients receive so that their immune system can help keep the cancer under control. Used in combination with new immunotherapies, this will achieve longer, healthier survival times for cancer patients.

Specialised/Technical Skills

UV-light studies
Combination chemotherapy studies (in vitro and in vivo)
Cell biology
Molecular biology
Genomics
Molecular analysis of fixed tissue
Combining genomic, protein and clinical data

Affiliations

HMRI Cancer Research Program
University of Newcastle Priority Research Centre for Cancer Research, Innovation and Translation
Cancer Institute NSW Hunter Translational Cancer Research Centre
Hunter Cancer Research Alliance
Chair, Australian Academy of Science Early-Mid Career Researcher Forum
Executive Committee, Women in Science Australia

2018

Researchers:

Associate Professor Nikola Bowden

Description:

Ovarian cancer is usually treated with a chemotherapy drug called cisplatin which works by damaging DNA so much that the tumour cells die. Cisplatin is used to treat a wide variety of tumours in addition to ovarian cancer including, testicular, head and neck and non-small cell lung cancer. In addition, it forms the basis of most combined treatment regimes (where 2 or more drugs are used in combination). The downside to cisplatin is that it is extremely toxic and although some patients benefit substantially from treatment, a large proportion suffer the toxic side effects without any therapeutic benefit. We are aiming to develop a personal test to determine if cisplatin is likely to be effective for an individual’s ovarian cancer, so that the toxic side effects can be avoided if the drug is not going to work.

2017

Researchers:

Associate Professor Nikola Bowden, Dr Michelle Wong-Brown

Description:

Aim 1: Confirmation of ERCC1 biomaker of chemoresistance; Aim 2: Investigate the epigenome of ovarian cancer extreme responders and non-responders to platinum chemotherapy

Researchers:

Dr Nikola Bowden

Description:

Researchers:

Dr Kathryn Skelding, Dr Nikola Bowden, A/Prof Lisa Lincz, Dr Anoop Enjeti, Dr Frank Alvaro

Description:

Cancer is the most common cause of childhood disease-related deaths, with leukaemia the most common childhood cancer in Australia. The two most common forms of leukaemia in children are acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). Whilst remission is achievable in over 95% of ALL cases, 1/3 of patients will relapse within 5 to 10 years, and these children will not be long-term survivors. AML accounts for 20% of all childhood leukaemias, and the outlook for children diagnosed with AML is much worse, with only approximately half of children surviving for 5 years post-diagnosis.

Researchers:

Dr Nikola Bowden

Description:

Ovarian cancer is most commonly treated with a chemotherapy drug called cisplatin. Cisplatin works by damaging DNA so much that the tumour cells die. It forms the basis of most combined treatment regimes (where two or more drugs are used in combination). The downside to cisplatin is that it is extremely toxic and although some patients benefit substantially from treatment, a large proportion suffer the toxic side effects without any therapeutic benefit.

Researchers:

Dr Nikola Bowden, Dr Andre van der Westhuizen

Description:

To overcome treatment resistance in melanoma there needs to be i) decrease in the amount of disease and ii) re-establishment of tumour recognition by the immune system.

2016

Researchers:

Dr Nikola Bowden, Dr Jim Scurry, Dr Geoff Otton, Dr Ken Jaaback, Dr Janine Lombard

Description:

Project Goal - To develop a test for predicting ovarian cancer response/resistance to cisplatin chemotherapy that can be quickly implemented in clincial centres. Such a test would let the doctor know that the patient is becoming resistant to cisplatin chemotherapy. At this stage there is no test available meaning some people remain on the wrong treatment protocol for the course of their treatment, suffereing toxic side effects for no benefit. The sooner treatment is switched the higher the chance that the patient will respond.