Congratulations to Melanoma Institute Australia researcher Dr Rebecca Simpson who has been awarded a Cancer Institute NSW 2024 Early Career Fellowship. The prestigious CINSW fellowships support early and mid-career researchers through the development of research and leadership skills and innovative approaches to research that will achieve significant patient outcomes.

Dr Simpson is a member of MIA’s translational research team at the Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney. Her fellowship is to support her groundbreaking work examining how microbes in our gut (microbiome) influence immune processes throughout the body, including how patients respond to immunotherapy. These therapies aim to reactivate a patient’s own immune system to recognise and kill tumour cells. However, nearly 50% of patients with advanced melanoma who are treated with immunotherapies still die of their disease. Immunotherapies can also cause severe side effects that can be life-altering and result in patients having to stop treatment.

Dr Simpson’s work has involved accumulating evidence to establish the importance of pre-treatment gut microbiome in immunotherapy outcomes in terms of both tumour clearance and the development of treatment-related toxicities. Her work has also shown the gut microbiome to be a potential indicator to predict clinical outcomes as well as a therapeutic target to improve the effectiveness and safety of treatment.

‘The research program supported by this fellowship seeks to increase our understanding of how gut microbes interact with the immune system to shape patient responses and clinical outcomes,’ Dr Simpson said. ‘This research will enable us to design targeted, evidence-based interventions to improve therapeutic outcomes for patients.’

Dr Simpson’s talent has been underpinned by the specialised clinical trials framework at Melanoma Institute Australia, particularly the investigator-led neoadjuvant trials designed by Medical Director Professor Georgina Long AO and the stool collection Professor Long established utilising the outstanding operational expertise of MIA’s Director of Clinical Care Maria Gonzalez and Director of Research Infrastructure Dr Nicole Caixeiro.

‘As Dr Simpson’s supervisor over many years, it has been so wonderful to mentor her and support her growth and achievements which have been supported by our unique infrastructure and patient samples,’ Prof Long said. ‘Having this supportive ecosystem has been instrumental in translating her talent and potential into meaningful research outcomes, further fuelling our world leading breakthroughs.’

In the 2023 NSW Premier’s Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research, Dr Simpson won the Rising Star PhD Candidate Award which honours an exceptional PhD Candidate making significant progress in their research and showing the potential to make an impact in any field of cancer research.

Since commencing her PhD in 2020, Dr Simpson has published four papers in high impact journals including first author publications in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Cancer Cell, and Nature Medicine. She has given 20 oral presentations at local, national, and international conferences.