Elgene Lim

Elgene was awarded his medical degree from the University of Melbourne. He obtained his medical oncology fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2006, and subsequently embarked on a PhD as a National Breast Cancer Foundation Scholar at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute with eminent Australian breast cancer researchers Professors Jane Visvader & Geoffrey Lindemann. His research identified the aberrant cells in carriers of the BRCA1 mutant gene, a hereditary breast cancer syndrome, which are the likely culprit cells giving rise to breast cancer. He furthered his research and clinical training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School under the mentorship of internationally acclaimed leaders in breast cancer research Professors Eric Winer & Myles Brown, through fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia, and Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He was awarded the National Breast Cancer Foundation Practitioner Fellowship in 2014 and returned from Boston to Australia. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural National Breast Cancer Foundation Endowed Chair. Elgene currently heads the breast oncology services at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre, St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. He also heads the Connie Johnson breast cancer research laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. His laboratory performs clinically focused laboratory research, including the establishment of patient-derived breast tumour xenografts in mice, the evaluation of novel therapies in these preclinical breast cancer models and the comparative study between normal and breast cancer tissue. Another major focus of my group is hormone receptors (such as the estrogen and androgen receptors) in breast tumours, specifically to identify ways to sensitize these cancer cells to endocrine therapies. Their research is funded through Cancer Australia, NHMRC, Cancer Council NSW, the National Breast Cancer, Love Your Sister, St Vincent's Curran, Balnaves and Garvan foundations. breast cancer, translational medical research, new therapeutic strategies, xenografts, clinical trials