Prof. Wayne D. Tilley (Adelaide Medical School, Adelaide, Australia)
Towards improved treatment of breast and prostate cancer: novel strategies to target sex hormone receptors”

Dr. Theresa E. Hickey (Adelaide Medical School, Adelaide, Australia)
The Pas de Deux of Androgen and Estrogen Receptors in Breast Development and Cancer

Host: Prof. Pirkko Härkönen (contact: 040-7343520)

Coffee/tea and cookies at 13:00

Research profiles of prof. WD Tilley and Dr. TE Hickey

Professor Wayne D Tilley is the Director of the Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Res Lab, Adelaide Medical School, Adelaide, Australia. His research area has covered widely hormonal carcinogenesis, mechanisms of steroid hormone actions and response and resistance to hormonal treatments. He has particularly focused on the structure, mechanisms and functions of androgen receptor starting from cloning of the gene. Recently he has worked on the splice variants of androgen receptor and in their role in the development of castration resistant prostate cancer. He has also been involved in development of novel ligands for androgen receptor, aimed at treatment of castration resistant prostate cancer and other indications. Prof. Tilley’s research has led to several original findings and concepts, published at highly ranked journals.

A detailed description of Prof Tilley’s research career and present projects can be found at: https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/wayne.tilley

Dr Theresa E. Hickey is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Breast Cancer Research Laboratory at the Dame Rome Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories (DRMCRL), School of Medicine, University of Adelaide. She has previously worked on reproductive medicine and specifically, on androgen receptor (AR) signaling in human ovarian tissues and in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Her current research focuses on AR signaling in human breast biology and breast cancer and its potential exploitation in development of breast cancer therapies.  Her ongoing collaboration with Prof Carroll’s laboratory in Cambridge has resulted in a recent Nature paper (2015), and co-authorship of a paper in Nature Genetics (2016) with another Cambridge colleague, Dr. Kerstin Meyer, both of which received extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally.

A more detailed description of Dr Hickey´s research career is found at: https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/theresa.hickey

Selected recent publications of Prof. WD Tilley and Dr. TE Hickey

Centenera MM, Hickey TE, Jindal S, Ryan NK, Ravindranathan P, Mohammed H, Robinson JL, Schiewer MJ, Ma S, Kapur P, Sutherland PD, Hoffmann CE, Roehrborn CG, Gomella LG, Carroll JS, Birrell SN, Knudsen KE, Raj GV, Butler LM, Tilley WD. A patient-derived explant (PDE) model of hormone-dependent cancer. Mol Oncol. 2018 Aug 16. doi: 10.1002/1878-0261.12354. [Epub ahead of print]

Ricciardelli C, Bianco-Miotto T, Jindal S, Butler LM, Leung S, McNeil CM, O’Toole SA, Ebrahimie E, Millar EKA, Sakko AJ, Ruiz AI, Vowler SL, Huntsman DG, Birrell SN, Sutherland RL, Palmieri C, Hickey TE, Tilley WD. The Magnitude of Androgen Receptor Positivity in Breast Cancer Is Critical for Reliable Prediction of Disease Outcome. Clin Cancer Res. 2018 May 15;24(10):2328-2341.

Tarulli GA, Laven-Law G, Shehata M, Walters KA, Denis IM, Rahman MM, Handelsman DJ, Dean NR, Tilley WD, Hickey TE. Androgen Receptor Signalling Promotes a Luminal Phenotype in Mammary Epithelial Cells. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia. 2018 Aug 12. doi: 10.1007/s10911-018-9406-2. [Epub ahead of print]

Carroll JS, Hickey TE, Tarulli GA, Williams M, Tilley WD. Deciphering the divergent roles of progestogens in breast cancer. Nat Rev Cancer. 2017 Jan;17(1):54-64. doi: 10.1038/nrc.2016.116. Review.

Ponnusamy S, Coss CC, Thiyagarajan T, Watts K, Hwang DJ, He Y, Selth LA, McEwan IJ, Duke CB, Pagadala J, Singh G, Wake RW, Ledbetter C, Tilley WD, Moldoveanu T, Dalton JT, Miller DD, Narayanan R. Novel Selective Agents for the Degradation of Androgen Receptor Variants to Treat Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. Cancer Res. 2017 Nov 15;77(22):6282-6298.

Paltoglou S, Das R, Townley SL, Hickey TE, Tarulli GA, Coutinho I, Fernandes R, Hanson AR, Denis I, Carroll JS, Dehm SM, Raj GV, Plymate SR, Tilley WD, Selth LA. Novel Androgen Receptor Coregulator GRHL2 Exerts Both Oncogenic and Antimetastatic Functions in Prostate Cancer. Cancer Res. 2017 Jul 1;77(13):3417-3430.

Das R, Gregory PA, Fernandes RC, Denis I, Wang Q, Townley SL, Zhao SG, Hanson AR, Pickering MA, Armstrong HK, Lokman NA, Ebrahimie E, Davicioni E, Jenkins RB, Karnes RJ, Ross AE, Den RB, Klein EA, Chi KN, Ramshaw HS, Williams ED, Zoubeidi A, Goodall GJ, Feng FY, Butler LM, Tilley WD, Selth LA. MicroRNA-194 Promotes Prostate Cancer Metastasis by Inhibiting SOCS2. Cancer Res. 2017 Feb 15;77(4):1021-1034.

Hu DG, Selth LA, Tarulli GA, Meech R, Wijayakumara D, Chanawong A, Russell R, Caldas C, Robinson JL, Carroll JS, Tilley WD, Mackenzie PI, Hickey TE. Androgen and Estrogen Receptors in Breast Cancer Coregulate Human UDP-Glucuronosyltransferases 2B15 and 2B17. Cancer Res. 2016 Oct 1;76(19):5881-5893.

Selth LA, Das R, Townley SL, Coutinho I, Hanson AR, Centenera MM, Stylianou N, Sweeney K, Soekmadji C, Jovanovic L, Nelson CC, Zoubeidi A, Butler LM, Goodall GJ, Hollier BG, Gregory PA, Tilley WD. A ZEB1-miR-375-YAP1 pathway regulates epithelial plasticity in prostate cancer. Oncogene. 2017 Jan 5;36(1):24-34. doi: 10.1038/onc.2016.185.

Castro MA, de Santiago I, Campbell TM, Vaughn C, Hickey TE, Ross E, Tilley WD, Markowetz F, Ponder BA, Meyer KB. Regulators of genetic risk of breast cancer identified by integrative network analysis. Nat Genet. 2016 Jan;48(1):12-21

Tarulli GA, Laven-Law G, Shakya R, Tilley WD, Hickey TE. Hormone-sensing mammary epithelial progenitors: emerging identity and hormonal regulation. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia. 2015;20:75-91.

Mohammed H, Russell IA, Stark R, Rueda OM, Hickey TE, Tarulli GA, Serandour AA, Birrell SN, Bruna A, Saadi A, Menon S, Hadfield J, Pugh M, Raj GV, Brown GD, D’Santos C, Robinson JL, Silva G, Launchbury R, Perou CM, Stingl J, Caldas C, Tilley WD, Carroll JS. Progesterone receptor modulates ERα action in breast cancer. Nature. 2015 Jul 16;523(7560):313-7.