Minoti Apte

Last updated

Minoti Apte

Apte.jpg
Alma mater
Known forDiscovering pancreatic stellate cells
Scientific career
FieldsPancreatology
Thesis Molecular mechanisms of alcohol-induced pancreatic injury (1997)
Doctoral advisors

Minoti Vivek Apte OAM FAHMS is an Indian-born Australian pancreatology researcher and is the Director of Pancreatic Research Group at the University of South Wales and Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research in Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia. [1] [2] [3] She is also a classical Indian dancer and choreographer.
Apte is notable for her many achievements in the field of pancreatic disease research, including becoming the first in the world to successfully isolate pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs), the cells associated with pancreatic fibrogenesis. [2] The effectiveness of this isolation method allowed her team to prove that PSCs’ close communication with cancerous cells contributes to the aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer, a major discovery that led the government of New South Wales to award her The Premier's Award for Woman of the Year in 2015. [2]

Contents

Education and career

Apte was born in India to a family that encouraged its female members to seek education and to earn professional accomplishments. Her great-aunt was a gynecologist, and her aunt and grandmother were respectively principal and founder and principle of girl's schools. [4] As a high school student in 1974, Apte won the state prize for 100% marks in mathematics at the High School Certificate Exam. [5] In 1982 she earned her MBBS from the University of Poona in India after graduating with honors with the intention of becoming an ophthalmologist. These plans were disrupted soon after her graduation, when Apte left India for Australia with her husband. While waiting to re-sit for the exams that would allow her to work as a doctor in Australia, Apte began volunteering for Newcastle Hospital’s pathology lab, where she developed an interest in medical research and especially research into the mechanisms behind pancreatic illness. [6] Apte pursued this area of study at the University of New South Wales in Australia, from which she graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1998, after becoming the first to successfully isolate PSCs. [7]

Honours and awards

She was awarded the New South Wales Woman of the Year Award in 2015 for this achievement and her continuing research in the field of pancreatic illness. [3] [6] Apte was presented with the Professor Rob Sutherland AO Make a Difference Award in the 2016 NSW Premier's Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research for her work improving pancreatic cancer outcomes. [8] In October 2019 Apte was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS). [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Prince Alfred Hospital</span> Hospital in Sydney, Australia

The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located on Missenden Road in Camperdown. It is a teaching hospital of the Central Clinical School of the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and is situated in proximity to the Blackburn Building of the university's main campus. RPAH is the largest hospital in the Sydney Local Health District, with approximately 700 beds. Following a $350 million redevelopment, the perinatal hospital King George V Memorial Hospital has been incorporated into it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerryn Phelps</span> Australian doctor and politician (born 1957)

Kerryn Lyndel Phelps is an Australian medical practitioner, public health and civil rights advocate, medical educator and former politician.

The Cancer Institute NSW Premier’s Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research are the premier awards ceremony for the cancer research sector in NSW. Now in its tenth year, the event honours the achievements of the individuals and teams that work across the cancer research sector to lessen the impact of cancer for the people of NSW.

Marie Ann Ficarra is an Australian politician who was a Liberal Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2007 to 2015. She was previously a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Georges River, but was defeated during the landslide election of 1999. She was the Shadow Minister for the Environment for the New South Wales Opposition.

Nicholas "Nick" Talley FRACP, FAFPHM, FRCP (Lond), FRCP (Edin), FACP, FACG, AGAF, FAHMS is an Australian gastroenterologist, epidemiologist, researcher, and clinical educator.

Sandra Eades is a Noongar physician, researcher and professor, and the first Aboriginal medical practitioner to be awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in 2003. As of March 2020 she is Dean of Medicine at Curtin University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharina Gaus</span> Australian immunologist (1972–2021)

Katharina Gaus was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions". A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases. Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.

Pamela J. Russell was an Australian academic researcher of immunology, bladder and prostate research. Russell was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia (AM) for her research on prostate and bladder cancer in 2003.

Michelle Haber is an Australian cancer researcher.

Bronwyn Taylor, an Australian politician, was the New South Wales Minister for Women, the Minister for Regional Health, and the Minister for Mental Health in the Perrottet ministry, since December 2021. Taylor has served as the Deputy Leader of the National Party in New South Wales since October 2021. She has been a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 2015, representing The Nationals.

Simone Anne Marie Badal-McCreath is a Jamaican chemist and cancer researcher. In 2014 she was one of five women awarded the Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Scientists in the Developing World for her creation of a lab at the Natural Products Institute to research the anti-cancer properties of natural Jamaican products. She currently lectures in Basic Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Mona, Jamaica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Pond</span> Australian scientist and technologist

Susan Margaret Pond is an Australian scientist and technologist, active in business and academia, and recognised for her contributions to medicine, biotechnology, renewable energy and sustainability. She is the current president of the Royal Society of New South Wales.

Maria Kavallaris is an Australian scientist, based at the University of New South Wales' Children's Cancer Institute, where she is best known for her contributions to the field of cancer research. On 25 January 2019, Kavallaris was appointed a member of the Order of Australia.

Professor Susan J. Clark is an Australian biomedical researcher in epigenetics of development and cancer. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2015, and is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Principal Research Fellow and Research Director and Head of Genomics and Epigenetics Division at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. Clark developed the first method for bisulphite sequencing for DNA methylation analysis and used it to establish that the methylation machinery of mammalian cells is capable of both maintenance and de novo methylation at CpNpG sites and showed is inheritable. Clark's research has advanced understanding of the role of DNA methylation, non-coding RNA and microRNA in embryogenesis, reprogramming, stem cell development and cancer and has led to the identification of epigenomic biomarkers in cancer. Clark is a founding member of the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC) and President of the Australian Epigenetics Alliance (AEpiA).

Sarah Elizabeth Medland is Professor and Psychiatric Genetics Group Leader at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Herston, Brisbane, Australia. She played a major role in the development of the ENIGMA brain imaging consortium.

Elizabeth Jane Elliott is an Australian clinician scientist. She is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), for services to paediatrics and child health, as well as an Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science (AAHMS), Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, and Fellow of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Health. She was the first female to win the James Cook Medal, awarded by the Royal Society of NSW for contributions to human welfare. She is a Distinguished Professor of paediatrics at the University of Sydney and a Consultant Paediatrician at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, Westmead, and regarded as a "pioneer in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, advocacy and patient care".

Romano Cesare Pirola is an Australian pancreatology researcher and gastroenterologist. He is a co-founder of the Pancreatic Research Group at the University of South Wales which is credited as the first research group to describe pancreatic stellate cells.

Emeritus Professor Maree Gleeson is an Australian immunologist. Her research has focused on respiratory immunology in children and elite athletes. She has held multiple leadership positions within the health sector in the Hunter Region in NSW.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babette Smith</span> Australian historian (1942–2021)

Babette Alison Smith was an Australian colonial historian, mediator and business executive. She wrote books about the convicts transported to Australia.

Glenda Margaret Halliday is an Australian neuroscientist. As of 2021, she is a professor at the University of Sydney and research fellow in the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She was named 2022 NSW Scientist of the Year.

References

  1. "2015 NSW Women of the Year Awards: Professor Minoti Apte OAM". NSW Government. 2015. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 "Women NSW". Women NSW. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Indian Cancer Researcher Wins Woman of the Year Award in Australia". NDTV.com. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  4. Sachin Wakhare (7 March 2015), Dr Minoti Apte Channel7 , retrieved 8 October 2017
  5. "MINOTI VIVEK APTE:CURRICULUM VITAE".
  6. 1 2 "Minoti Apte". Radio National. 1 April 2015. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  7. "MINOTI VIVEK APTE: CURRICULUM VITAE" (PDF).
  8. "2016 Research Awards". Cancer Institute NSW. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  9. "Academy elects new Fellows and discusses global pandemic threat at annual meeting". AAHMS - Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. 9 October 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.