MENTEE – Christina Sparbier

Christina is a third year PhD student at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne. In 2013 she was jointly awarded her Bachelor of Medical Science in a highly competitive exchange program between The Australian National University and University of South Australia. In 2014 she achieved First Class Honours at ANU where she investigated the role of mutations in T follicular Helper cells driving angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. Upon finishing her undergraduate studies, she started as a Research Assistant at the Canberra Hospital in Radiation Biology. Her research focuses were on optimising therapeutic agents to improve patient treatment and adapting existing therapies for burn victims to treat patients suffering from radiation burns. In 2016 she joined the Cancer Epigenetics laboratory at PeterMac as a Research Assistant and substantially contributed to two major projects. The first identified CMTM6 as a novel regulator of PD-L1 expression and the subsequent project uncovered the evolutionarily conserved role of polycomb in maintaining silencing of MHC Class I, enabling cancer immune evasion. These projects lead to second author publications in Nature and Cancer Cell, respectively. Continuing with her passion in cancer epigenetics and immunology she started her PhD in 2018 in the Dawson Laboratory and was awarded the competitive Peter MacCallum Postgraduate Scholarship. Her project is on overcoming immunotherapy resistance in MHC-I deficient cancers. She has uncovered a novel regulator which has implications in therapeutic targeting as well as understanding fundamental mechanisms in developmental and cancer biology. While at PeterMac she has undertaken leadership roles, including joining the 2020 Student Committee, where they took on significant challenges during the pandemic in supporting students and coordinating online events for PeterMac and Parkville precinct. In her final year she plans to present and publish her findings, and look for the next scientific opportunity in line with her goals.