Dr Fiona Zhou, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow

Fiona Zhou obtained her PhD at University of Adelaide studying the inflammatory response to growth plate injury which results in bony formation. After completion of her PhD, she has conduct post-doctoral research in cartilage biology in the US followed by liver injury and neuroscience back in Adelaide. During the past 3 years Fiona joined the Connie Johnson breast cancer research lab at the Garvan Institute in Sydney and led the research in testing therapies to combat drug resistant Estrogen Receptor-positive breast cancer using in vitro and in vivo models. In 2025 Fiona has joined Dr Joanna Achinger-Kawecka in the 3D Chromatin Organisation Laboratory to continue her interests in cancer research using in vitro and in vivo cancer models of drug resistance to study what roles 3D chromatin alterations may play and identify potential therapeutic targets to test. 

Geri Laven-Law, Research Manager

Geri is a molecular biologist with an interest in cancer epigenetics, and is excited to explore using cutting-edge methods to study the role of 3D chromatin alterations in cancer development, progression, and treatment resistance. Geri has previously worked on pre-clinical projects involving hormone regulation in breast and prostate cancer with Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Labs under Prof Wayne Tilley and A/Prof Theresa Hickey, and more recently, has taken on a more clinical role looking at non-invasive biomarkers for colorectal cancer and pre-cancerous lesions with A/Prof Erin Symonds. 

Dr Daniel Thomson, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow (Bioinformatics)

Daniel is an experienced computational biologist, passionate about applying genomic technology for cancer research and new diagnostic applications. He has a PhD from Adelaide University and has held postdoctoral positions at the Garvan Institute, SA Pathology and Flinders University. Daniel was the primary bioinformatician for two NATA applications for diagnostic genomics applications towards cancer diagnostics and polygenic risk testing; while working as the clinical bioinformatics lead at Monash Pathology and at biotech start-up SeonixBio, respectively. With experience spanning cancer research, molecular pathology and start-up biotech, he has a diverse expertise in genomics and bioinformatics, with key research interests including; clinical genomics, transcriptomics, non-coding RNA, mobile DNA, personalised medicine, and cancer biology. In his role as senior postdoctoral fellow (Bioinformatics) in the 3D Chromatin Organisation Lab, SAIGENCI, Daniel will be tackling questions around genome structure, function, and dysregulation in cancer, through the application and development of new genomics technologies and multi-omic analysis approaches. 

Elyssa Campbell, Research Assistant and PhD Student @ UNSW Sydney