Liz Caldon

Associate Professor Liz Caldon is a prominent cancer researcher and the Group Leader of the Replication and Genome Stability Lab at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, which is affiliated with The Kinghorn Cancer Centre. Her work focuses on understanding resistance mechanisms in breast and ovarian cancers, particularly estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer and basal-like breast cancers. She leads efforts to develop targeted therapies for cancers that have become resistant to standard treatments, including hormone therapy and CDK4/6 inhibitors.124

Education and Career

Liz Caldon holds undergraduate degrees in Science and Law from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, a Master's degree from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from UNSW. Her doctoral research explored the interaction between hormone signaling and breast cancer cell proliferation. In 2013, she established her research team at the Garvan Institute to study cancer cell evolution under therapeutic pressures.15

Research Focus

Her lab investigates how cancer cells adapt to selective pressures from therapies, leading to drug resistance. Key projects include:

• Modeling resistance to hormone therapies in ER+ breast cancer.
• Studying drug resistance in ovarian cancer.
• Developing genetic tests to predict patient responses to DNA repair-blocking drugs like PARP inhibitors.126

Achievements

Caldon has received numerous awards, including:

• Cancer Institute NSW Fellowship.
• Mavis Robertson Fellowship from the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF).
• National Breast Cancer Foundation Career Development Fellowship.13

She also serves as an Associate Editor for journals such as Oncogenesis and Endocrine Oncology.13

Through her research, Liz Caldon aims to translate fundamental cancer biology into clinical applications that improve outcomes for patients with therapy-resistant cancers.12