Biography

Professor Gail P Risbridger is a past National Health & Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellow. An internationally prominent scientist leading a highly recognised research team of scientists and clinicians with a reputation in Men's Health and Andrology related projects. As one of Australia’s leading prostate cancer researchers her research programs have advanced understanding of prostate biology in health and disease and key contributions relate to hormone action and the role of estrogens in cell growth and inflammation and stromal-epithelial cell signalling mechanisms, involving stem cells & cancer associated fibroblast CAFs. Her laboratory is internationally recognised for expertise in human tissue xenografting and use of tissue recombination to study stem cell interaction with the tumour micro-environment. After graduating from Monash University she worked in teaching departments at the University, until becoming a founding member of the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR) now known as the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. She currently co-leads the Prostate Cancer Research Program based at Monash University, Biomedicine Discovery Institute in the Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology. She has >299 publications, including original articles in general biomedical journals and in specialist journals of Endocrinology, Cell Biology, Urology, Pathology, Oncology & Environmental Sciences including publications in Nature Methods Nature Cancer Reviews, FASEB and American Journal of Pathology with editorials and commentaries by other leaders highlighting her work and since 2010, her international profile as a senior investigator is evident from her invitations to give plenary, state of the art, keynote and symposium presentations at International meetings including (Int Congresses of Endocrinology and of Andrology, Gordon Research Conference, National Prostate Cancer Charity UK) along with National meetings (ESA, COSA, and National Prostate Cancer Symposia). She has received continuous funding for research for >26 years and demonstrated distinguished professional achievement resulting in Awards that include Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (2001), 5 renewals of NHMRC Research Fellowships (1996-2020) and Lifetime achievement awards from the Endocrine Society of Australia 2008 & 2012, Society of Reproductive Biology Fellow (2015) and received a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia (General Division) in the 2023 Australia Day Honours awards. Over her career she has supervised and successfully completed the training of 9 Masters, 33 Honours students and 35 PhD and currently supervising 6 PhD students, many of whom have won International or National awards and prizes during their candidature. She also supervises visiting Fellows, Postdoctoral and Surgical trainees especially from Urology Training programs (Australia, UK and Japan). She is a founding member of Andrology Australia (DoHA Centre of Excellence), a community based program that advocates for men's health (including prostate cancer) and in 2010, her influential lead and research contributions resulted in the development of the first National Men’s Health Policy in Australia and has established academic and industry collaborations to build infrastructure to underpin the national research effort in Australian Prostate Cancer Research, including a National tissue bank with Victorian State Government informatics support.