Judith Clements 9th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society 2015

Judith Clements

Professor Judith Clements is a Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia and leads the Cancer Program at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology. She is also Scientific Director of the federally-funded Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre-Queensland based at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane. Nationally, she is the Chair of the virtual national prostate cancer tissue bank – the Australian Prostate Cancer BioResource. Internationally, she sits on the Biospecimens Working Group for the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) and is co-leader of the Queensland node of the international genome wide association study for prostate cancer, PRACTICAL. She has been internationally recognized for her pioneering research into the molecular and cell biology of the kallikrein-related serine peptidases by the awarding of the Silver (2000) and Gold (2007) international EK Frey-Werle Medals. She has over 170 publications in scientific journals and collaborates widely with colleagues in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe. Her personal research focuses on mechanistic and translational studies of the role of the kallikrein-related serine peptidases in hormone dependent cancers, particularly prostate and ovarian cancers. Her group has systematically assessed the underlying mechanisms involved at the level of transcription (cancer-specific splice variant mRNAs, hormonal regulation/specific regulatory elements, SNPs) and cell biology (epithelial-mesenchymal transition, affinity for bone cells, spheroid formation and chemoresistance) of the KLK gene family in these cancers. She has also recently embarked on a comprehensive analysis using novel proteomic approaches to determine the repertoire of substrates involved in these events to better understand the molecular pathways utilised and their potential as therapeutic targets and/or clinical markers of progression. She is using a comprehensive systems biology approach using proteomic (substrate identification) and transcriptome (downstream signalling pathways) analysis in combination with 3D in vitro models to better reflect the in vivo tumour microenvironment.