Dr Bang Tran is a junior postdoctoral research fellow in the Molecular Oncology research group headed by Professor Elizabeth Vincan. Bang has extensive research expertise with mouse and human models of liver cancer, with a focus on Wnt signalling, a molecular pathway that is critical for stem cell and cancer cell function. Bang completed his PhD in the Vincan group, studying the oncogenic interplay between hepatitis B viral infection and Wnt signalling in liver cancer. Bang developed novel ex-vivo 3D tumour organoid technologies to dissect the impact of viral proteins on oncogenic Wnt signalling. His discoveries impact all Wnt-addicted cancers.

Bang is also steering a translational research initiative, in collaboration with the first organoid Biobank established in the Netherlands by Professor Hans Clevers, on behalf of the Vincan lab. This initiative enables the lab to establish diverse organoid models of human infectious disease.

· He is a co-investigator (CIC) on a successful NHMRC ideas grant awarded to Professor Vincan, to continue his research to understand how the Wnt signalling pathway can maintain normal tissue but also drive cancer in these tissues when incorrectly activated.”