Meet Jean, a passionate Bowel Health Service researcher dedicated to discovering non-invasive biomarker tests for early detection and improved outcomes in gastrointestinal cancers.

In 25 words or less, tell us what your research is about?

Our group at the Bowel Health Service aims to discover and translate non-invasive biomarker tests for screening, diagnosis and surveillance of gastrointestinal cancers.

How do you believe your research will impact patient care or public health outcomes?

Gastrointestinal cancers, which include cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, small intestine, liver, and large bowel (colon and rectum) account for one-third of all diagnosed cancer cases globally. They also account for more than one-third of all cancer-related deaths, where the mortality rates for these cancers are much higher than all other types of cancers combined. We are also seeing an increase in numbers of these cancers in younger people, especially cancers of bowel and pancreas. It therefore remains important that we can identify these cancers early, where treatment options produce the best outcomes for patients. However, these cancers don’t produce symptoms early in the disease process, so most are not detected until it is more advanced and harder to treat.

In Australia, only bowel cancer has a screening program in place to detect these cancers in the general asymptomatic population. It uses a stool test to detect blood that is shed from the bowel cancer. However, participation rates are very low, only 40% of eligible people participate. This means there are a lot of cancers going undiagnosed. Furthermore, these tests don’t detect all the other gastrointestinal cancers.

What do you enjoy most about being a researcher?

I love working in the lab and doing experiments! To be able to test a new hypothesis or idea, design an experiment and see the results first-hand, it is just so exciting.  I also love the fact not one day at work looks the same, there is always something new and different to do in research!

What do you do when you’re not researching? 

I absolutely love playing basketball, I’ve been playing since I was in primary school. I play women’s district basketball and I also coach U16 boys’ basketball. I also keep busy as a mum of two boys!

What advice would you give to aspiring health and medical researchers?

Find what you are passionate about and dedicate your work to it. When you are passionate about something, it will never feel like it is your job or something that you need to work hard at. It will just come naturally, and then that makes life in a competitive field such as biomedical research that little bit easier to navigate.