Professor Colleen Nelson
![Profile image of Professor Colleen Nelson](https://www.qut.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0020/1058501/placeholder-profile-image.png)
Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Biography
Professor Colleen Nelson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre - Queensland (APCRC-Q) and Chair of Prostate Cancer Research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The Centre, based at the Translational Research Institute and the Princess Alexandra Hospital, spans the spectrum of discovery of new therapeutic targets and their preclinical and clinical development.
Prof Nelson’s expertise is in translational prostate cancer research, specifically in identification of potential therapeutic targets, their in vitro and in vivo validation, clinical validation through molecular pathology approaches, and their translation into potential clinical application. These outcomes are derived from her expertise in high throughput applications in microarray gene expression, gene regulation, animal models, prostate cancer, steroid hormones, molecular endocrinology, and targeted therapeutics.
Prof Nelson has long studied androgen action and the effects of androgen deprivation and progression to castrate resistant prostate cancer. Her laboratory made the seminal discovery that castrate resistant prostate tumours can synthesize their own androgens de novo from cholesterol. Recently, these findings have been extended to investigate the inter-relationships of androgen synthesis, prostate cancer progression, and metabolic syndrome.
Prof Nelson is also Director of the Australian-Canadian Prostate Cancer Research Alliance, an initiative developed to coordinate national and international network interactions of over 280 prostate cancer scientists and clinicians in Australia and Canada. The Alliance facilitates access to state-of-the-art infrastructure and clinical trials and assists in the translation of a wide range of discoveries in both countries. Since arriving in Australia in 2007, Prof Nelson has been awarded more than $29 million in research grants, including the prestigious Queensland Government Smart Futures Premier’s Fellowship in 2009.
Prof Nelson is Chair of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) Research Committee and a member of the TRI Caucus. She has also been appointed the Prostate Cancer Stream Leader within Diamantina Health Partners’ Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
Prior to her appointment in Australia, Prof Nelson was a founding scientist of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, a National Centre of Excellence in Research and Commercialization. Over the past decade she has worked in close collaboration with Dr Martin Gleave, Director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre. During that period, Prof Nelson was awarded research grants in excess of $100 million from most of the key biomedical funding agencies and industry in North America for peer-reviewed operating funds and establishment of state-of-the-art research facilities.
Intellectual property from Prof Nelson’s research has been licensed from University of British Columbia to OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, a Vancouver-based biotechnology company. The lead agents are now in Phase II and Phase III clinical trials in North America. Prof Nelson has been on a number of Strategic and Scientific Advisory Boards and was the inaugural Director of the Microarray Platform for Genome Canada from 2000 to 2009.
In 2010, Prof Nelson was appointed to the Movember Foundation’s Board of Directors and serves as the Chair of Movember’s Global Scientific Committee. This committee leads Movember’s Global Action Plan initiative to accelerate key outcomes in prostate cancer research by facilitating global research collaboration projects.
Prof Nelson has been the Chair of the Canadian Prostate Cancer Research Initiative and now serves as an International Strategic Advisor for Prostate Cancer Canada. Since arriving in Australia, she has joined the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Australia New Zealand Urogenital Prostate Clinical Trials Group and chairs the Correlative and Translational Research Subcommittee.
Prof Nelson works closely with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. She has been a co-organiser of their international conferences and assists in their fund raising activities. She is passionate about prostate cancer advocacy and regularly disseminates information to community organisations, including prostate cancer support groups.
Prof Nelson has played a key role in helping to establish the first multi-disciplinary team (MDT) clinic for advanced prostate cancer in Australia – the linked MDT Prostate Cancer Trials Unit.
Personal details
Positions
- Professor
Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Research field
Genetics, Medical biochemistry and metabolomics, Oncology and carcinogenesis
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- PhD (Australian National University)
Professional memberships and associations
2010-
Director, Movember Board
2011-
Director, Rick Hansen Institute Board
Scholarly Societies
1997-
Active Member, American Association for Cancer Research
2001-2005
Member, Inaugural Research Advisory Council, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
2002-
Member, Endocrine Society, USA
2005-2008
Vice-Chair, Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada
2007
Regular Member, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
2007-
Member, Endocrine Society, USA
2007-
Member Endocrine Society of Australia
2008-
Member, Ausbiotech
2008-
Corporate Member, Queensland Clinical Trials Network
2009-
International Strategic Advisor, Prostate Cancer Canada
2010-
Member, American Society of Clinical Oncology
Consultant
2000-2001
Scientific Advisory Board: Inphogene Bioinformatics
2001-
International Council of Advisors, Gerson Lehrman Group
2001
Scientific Advisory Board: Molecular Templates
2003-
Scientific Advisory Board: OncoGenex
2005-2006
Advisor: World Congress on Microarray Technology
2010
Queensland Government North American Partnerships
2010
Queensland Government Precinct Development
2010
Queensland Government, Developing Smarter Communities
2010
Task Force, Queensland Biotech
2010
Advisor, TRX10/ Queensland Clinical Trials Network
2009-
Canadian Australian Chamber of Commerce
2008-
Lifesciences and Biotech Queensland
2010-
Movember- Global Initiatives
Service to Hospitals
1999
Department of Surgery Head Selection Committee, University of British Columbia and Vancouver General Hospital
2000-2003
Rick Hansen Institute, iCORD, Strategic Planning Committee for Spinal Cord Research, UBC, VGH
Publications
- Gunter, J., Sarkar, P., Lubik, A. & Nelson, C. (2013). New players for advanced prostate cancer and the rationalisation of insulin-sensitising medication. International Journal of Cell Biology, 2013, 1–13. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/60639
- Sieh, S., Taubenberger, A., Rizzi, S., Sadowski, M., Lehman, M., Rockstroh, A., An, J., Clements, J., Nelson, C. & Hutmacher, D. (2012). Phenotypic characterization of prostate cancer LNCaP cells cultured within a bioengineered microenvironment. PLoS One, 7(9), 1–16. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/53843
- Gunter, J., Lubik, A., Mckenzie, I., Pollak, M. & Nelson, C. (2012). The interactions between insulin and androgens in progression to castrate-resistant prostate cancer. Advances in Urology, 2012, 1–11. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/54725
- Wang, Q., Bailey, C., Ng, C., Tiffen, J., Thoeng, A., Minhas, V., Lehman, M., Hendy, S., Buchanan, G., Nelson, C., Rasko, J. & Holst, J. (2011). Androgen receptor and nutrient signaling pathways coordinate the demand for increased amino acid transport during prostate cancer progression. Cancer Research, 71(24), 7525–7536. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/52354
- Lubik, A., Gunter, J., Hendy, S., Locke, J., Adomat, H., Thompson, V., Herington, A., Gleave, M., Pollak, M. & Nelson, C. (2011). Insulin increases de novo steroidogenesis in prostate cancer cells. Cancer Research, 71(17), 5754–5764. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/52340
- Locke, J., Guns, E., Lubik, A., Adomat, H., Hendy, S., Wood, C., Ettinger, S., Gleave, M. & Nelson, C. (2008). Androgen levels increase by intratumoral de novo steroidogenesis during progression of castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cancer Research, 68(15), 6407–6415. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/30908
- Mulholland, D., Dedhar, S., Wu, H. & Nelson, C. (2006). PTEN and GSK beta : key regulators of progression to androgen-independent prostate cancer. Oncogene, 25(3), 329–337. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/37447
- Thompson, V., Morris, T., Cochrane, D., Cavanagh, J., Wafa, L., Hamilton, T., Wang, S., Fazli, L., Gleave, M. & Nelson, C. (2006). Relaxin becomes upregulated during prostate cancer progression to androgen independence and is negatively regulated by androgens. The Prostate, 66(16), 1698–1709. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/37428
- Mulholland, D., Dedhar, S., Coetzee, G. & Nelson, C. (2005). Interaction of nuclear receptors with Wnt/beta-Catenin/Tcf Signaling Axis: Wnt you like to know? Endocrine Reviews, 26(7), 898–915. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/37437
- Ettinger, S., Sobel, R., Whitmore, T., Akbari, M., Bradley, D., Gleave, M. & Nelson, C. (2004). Dysregulation of sterol response element-binding proteins and downstream effectors in prostate cancer during progression to androgen independence. Cancer Research, 64(6), 2212–2221. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/10271
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Colleen, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Supervision
Supervision topics
- Prostate cancer transcriptomics (Honours and Master of Philosophy)
- Targeting leptin's signalling axis to prevent treatment resistance in prostate cancer
- Restoring adiponectin signalling to prevent prostate cancer progression
- Investigating the role of Neuropilin-1 in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer metastasis and chemoresistance
- Testing a promising targeted therapeutic for triple-negative breast cancer
- Characterisation of a novel protein co-amplified with the n-MYC oncogene
- Using a natural β-carboline dimer compound to target metabolic vulnerabilities linked to glycolysis in prostate cancer
- A novel molecular targeted therapy for anaplastic prostate cancer