2025 ACDS COMMITTEE

Dr Georgia Atkin-Smith

Georgia is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher and NHMRC EL1 Fellow at WEHI working with A/Prof Edwin Hawkins. She completed her PhD at La Trobe University in 2019 with Prof. Ivan Poon. Georgia’s research focuses on harnessing a variety of high resolution imaging techniques to visualise the progression, death and clearance of cancer cells in vivo.

atkinsmith.g@wehi.edu.au

Dr Sabrina Burgener

Sabrina is the Deputy Lab Head of the Inflammasome Group (Prof. Kate Schroder) at the

Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at the University of Queensland.

In 2019, she joined the Inflammasome Group as a Senior Research Fellow with back-to-

back fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and Novartis Foundation for

Medical-Biological Research. In the Inflammasome lab, her research program focuses on

pre-clinical disease models to study inflammation and cell death with a focus on 1) how the

innate immune system drives disease, 2) identifying novel therapeutic targets in these

diseases, and 3) defining potential trade-offs in preventing inflammation.

Sabrina holds funding for her independent research program from Metro South’s co-funded

collaboration project scheme and ARC Discovery Projects.

s.burgener@imb.uq.edu.au

Dr Kerstin Brinkmann 

Kerstin is a Victorian Cancer Agent Mid-Career-Research fellow in the Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division at WEHI (Melbourne, Australia). She is an emerging leader in the field of cell death as evidenced by 22 publications including 5 first author publications in leading journals such as EMBO J, Cell Death and Differentiation and Cell Reports. Her research focuses on the improvement of cancer therapy by evaluating potential treatment side effects of different chemotherapeutic treatment protocols, including DNA damaging chemotherapy and BH3 mimetic compounds. Kerstin currently leads a small team at WEHI and holds funding for her independent research program from the Victorian Cancer Agency, the NHMRC and the Cancer Council Victoria.

brinkmann.k@wehi.edu.au

Dr Radek Szmyd

Radek is a mid-career researcher at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Sydney

with over 10 years of experience in cancer cell biology, cell cycle and genome instability.

Graduated with a MSc in Biotechnology from Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland; 2007-

2012) and PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from National University of Singapore (2013-

2018). Immediately after his PhD, he joined Prof Tony Cesare’s lab at CMRI as a lead

postdoctoral researcher in the collaborative project between Prof Cesare and Assoc/Prof

Harriet Gee.Radek’s current research focuses on targeting DNA damage response in combination with

radiotherapy to elicit synergy with immunotherapy for cancer patients benefit.

rszmyd@cmri.org.au

Dr Stefanie Bader

Stefanie is a post doctoral researcher in the Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence division at WEHI. She researches the role of cell death and inflammation during SARS-CoV-2 infection, and how these pathways may be targeted as therapeutic options for treatment of severe COVID-19.

bader.s@wehi.edu.au

Dr Amy Baxter

Amy leads the Dying Cell Communication and Clearance group in the Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease Research division at La Trobe University.  Her group is focused on understanding the role of dying cell fragmentation and clearance during cardiovascular disease. Following her PhD with Dr Mark Hulett (LIMS), she received an NHMRC Peter Doherty Early Career Fellowship (2018-2021) which she completed in the laboratory of Dr Ivan Poon, investigating the release of extracellular vesicles from dying cells. 

a.baxter@latrobe.edu.au

Dilara Ozkocak

Dilara is a final year PhD student at La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS) under the supervision of A/Prof Ivan Poon. Dilara’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms behind apoptotic body formation and release, and further understanding their therapeutic potential in the context of inflammatory diseases.

d.ozkocak@latrobe.edu.au

Dr Sarah Garnish

Sarah is a NHMRC EL1 Fellow in the Department of Microbiology at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute working with Prof Hayley Newton. Sarah completed her PhD at WEHI in 2022 with Prof. James Murphy, researching the necroptotic cell death pathway. Her current research focuses on understanding how intracellular bacterial pathogens manipulate cell death signaling pathways to survive.

sarah.garnish@monash.edu

Jeremy Yap

Jeremy is a PhD student at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland under Prof. Kate Schroder. His research delves into the regulation and activation mechanisms of the NLRP1 inflammasome, as well as the interplay between inflammatory and apoptotic signalling pathways in epithelial cells.

j.k.yap@uq.edu.au

Dr Pooranee Morgan

Pooranee is a postdoctoral researcher in the Haematopoiesis and Leukocyte Biology lab (Prof. Andrew Murphy) at the Baker HDI. Pooranee's research focuses on identifying and developing potential lipid-based therapeutic applications to alter immune cell sensitivity to ferroptosis in the contexts of cancer and atherosclerosis.

Pooranee.Morgan@baker.edu.au