Tuesday seminar series 

Speaker 1: Felicity Davis

Title: Multiscale activity imaging in the mammary gland reveals essential role for intracellular calcium signalling in lactation

Bio: Dr Davis believes that the key to unlocking the mysteries of breast cancer lies in our understanding of normal breast development and homeostasis. Her research seeks to understand the cellular hierarchy in the breast and the pathways that regulate adult stem cells. She also studies the unique capacity of the mammary gland to sustain multiple cycles of pregnancy and lactation, a remarkable feat of regeneration. Dr Davis hopes that a greater understanding of the processes governing growth, death and remodelling under physiological conditions will help to identify new strategies for curbing the uncontrolled growth, death resistance and remodelling that is common to all breast cancers.

Felicity completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2012, before performing postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health (USA) and the University of Cambridge (UK). She is pharmacist, University Medalist and an NHMRC Career Development Fellow. She has published her research in multidisciplinary journals, including Nature Communications and PNAS, and has won numerous awards including a Women in Technology (WiT) Rising Star Award, NIH Martin Rodbell Award and the European Calcium Society Drabikowski Award.

Speaker 2: Teneale Stewart

Title: The mechanics of milk production

Bio:Teneale Stewart is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Davis Lab at the Mater Research Institute–The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Teneale completed her PhD at The University of Queensland in 2016, where she studied the role of cellular signalling pathways in processes important in breast cancer metastasis, with a focus on calcium signalling in epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Following her PhD, she worked as a Susan G Komen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Harris Lab, University of Minnesota, investigating the transcriptional regulation of the cytosine deaminase, APOBEC3B, a source of mutation in breast cancer. Teneale’s work is now focused on better understanding normal mammary gland physiology, in the hope that this may inform future approaches to targeting breast cancer cells. Her current research aims to understand the role of mechanosensing in lactation and involution.