Associate Dean, Research Centres & Institutes
Director, Centre for Urological Research (CURe)
Monash Institute of Medical Research(MIMR)
Monash Medical Centre
246 Clayton Road,
Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
Phone: (61-3) 9594 7408
Fax: (61-3) 9594 7420
Email: Gail.Risbridger@med.monash.edu.au
Research Interest
Prof Risbridger is internationally recognised for her work on hormones and prostate cancer (PCa). PCa is an endocrine related disease and, by definition, is hormonally regulated. Throughout her career Prof Risbridger has provided novel insight to how androgens (and more recently, estrogens) are involved in cell-cell signalling between the stroma and epithelia during the development and progression of PCa. She has led the field with the idea of the importance and role of estrogens (prototypical female hormones) to PCa, using mouse models of estrogen deficiency and action. Her preclinical testing of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) developed by her pharmaceutical industry collaborator, (Bayer Schering Pharma AG), and reported in Nature Reviews Cancer 2007, predicts their therapeutic utility for the treatment of PCa.
Her laboratory is recognized world-wide for her expertise in tissue recombination, where stroma and epithelia from different organs and tissues are recombined to study reciprocal signalling pathways. More recently she developed expertise in stem cell technologies in order to study adult human prostate stem cell differentiation and the role of the stroma in prostate cancer stem cell biology. Her publication in Nature Methods (2006) reported conserved signalling mechanisms across species and showed the fundamental importance of the stroma in directing and determining stem cell fate. This work establishes a new era of research in stem and tumor cell biology that is under investigation in this consortium.
She has more than 150 publications on various aspects of endocrine hormone action or stromal epithelial cell signalling, attesting to her reputation in the fields of cancer as well as endocrinology, developmental biology, anatomy and pathology.Her contributions to endocrinology were recognized by the award of Asia and Oceania Medal in 2006 from the British Endocrine Society and a Fulbright Senior Scholar award from the USA (2003).
Publications
1. McPherson, SJ, Ellem SJ, Simpson, ER, Patchev, V, Fritzemeier, K-H, Risbridger, GP (2007) Essential role for estrogen receptor β in stromal-epithelial regulation of prostatic hyperplasia. Endocrinology. 148(2):566-74.
2. Ricke WA, McPherson SJ, Bianco JJ, Cunha GR, Wang Y, Risbridger GP (2007). Prostatic hormonal carcinogeneis is mediated by in situ estrogen production and estrogen receptor alpha-signaling. FASEB Journal (E-Pub 30 November 2007)
3. Ellem SJ & Risbridger GP. (2007) Treating Prostate Cancer; A rationale for targeting local estrogens. Nature Reviews Cancer. (7): 621-627.
4. Taylor RA, Cowin, PA., Cunha GR, Pera M, Trounson AO, Pedersen J, Risbridger GP. (2006) Formation of human prostate tissue from embryonic stem cells. Nature Methods 3 (3):179-181 (IF15) [Featured in News, TV and Radio worldwide- in general, scientific and pharmaceutical industry publications-resulted in Servier and Bulletin Magazine Young Achiever of the Year Awards.]
5. Bianco JJ, McPherson SJ, Wang H, Prins GS, Risbridger GP, (2006) Transient neonatal estrogen exposure to estrogen deficient mice (Aromatase knockout) reduces prostate weight and induces inflammation in late life. Am J Pathol. 68(6):1869-78.
6. Almahbobi G, Hedwards, S, Fricout G, Jeulin D, Bertram JF, Risbridger GP. 2005 Computer-based detection of early changes to branching morphogenesis reveals multiple mechanisms of prostate enlargement. Journal of Pathology 206:52-61.
7. McPherson S, Wang H, Pedersen J, Wreford N, Jones M, Simpson ER, & Risbridger GP (2001) Elevated androgens and prolactin in aromatase deficient mice (ArKO) cause enlargement but not malignancy of the prostate gland. Endocrinology 142:2458-2467.
8. Risbridger GP, Wang H, Young P, Kurita T, Wang Y Z, Lubhan D, Gustafsson JA, Cunha G. (2001) Evidence that epithelial and mesenchymal estrogen receptor alpha mediate effects of estrogen on prostatic epithelium. Developmental Biology 229: 432-442.