Associate Professor Frances Byrne

Associate Professor Frances Byrne is a cancer researcher in the School of Biotechnology & Biomolecular Sciences at UNSW. She completed her undergraduate Biotechnology degree at Flinders University (South Australia), her PhD at the Children’s Cancer Institute (Sydney) and postdoctoral studies at the University of Virginia (USA).

Her research focuses on finding new drugs that target metabolic vulnerabilities in cancer cells, with the aim of killing tumours while minimising harm to healthy cells. Her team are also interested in understanding how obesity increases the risk of cancer (specifically liver and uterine cancers) and whether targeting obesity with new drugs can improve patient responses to cancer therapies.

Frances is committed to facilitating clinical translation of new cancer drugs and does this through representing UNSW on the national drug commercialisation training program, The Bridge Program. As Academic Lead of the UNSW STEMM Champions Program, she is a strong advocate for science communication and is passionate about mentoring young researchers and building the next generation of scientific leaders.