Victoria Gordon is a pharmaceutical researcher, and was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2025.[1] She has conducted research into how rainforests of northern Australia may yield chemicals, which may form the basis of new cancer-treating pharmaceuticals.[2] Her research has led to treatments approved by the USA FDA for the treatment of dog cancers.[3]
Gordon was raised in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and was one of seven children. The families father passed away when Gordon was aged 11, and at 14 years, she left school to help pay the families bills. Thirteen years later, Gordon completed a Bachelor of Applied Sciences degree at the University of Tasmania.
After obtaining her degree, she then worked at the university, and researching in the Tasmanian timber industry, for Boral. She subsequently moved to CSIRO and worked there for six years.[4]
Career
Gordon, and her partner, set up a laboratory in the Atherton Tablelands, and tested rainforest samples for properties that would act as fungicides or herbicides. One screening has a 67% success rate, for chemical activity within the materials they had extracted.[4]
After sending the samples to a laboratory that specalised in microbial screening, the lab then took an equity stake in the company, then called Ecobiotics. Gordon and her partner then began seeking funding from investors in government, industry and private investors.[4]
Maslovskaya, L.A., Savchenko, A.I., Gordon, V.A., Reddell, P.W., Pierce, C.J., Boyle, G.M., Parsons, P.G. and Williams, C.M. (2019), New Halimanes from the Australian Rainforest Plant Croton Insularis. Eur. J. Org. Chem., 2019: 1058–1060. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.201801548[5]
Cullen JK, Yap P, Ferguson B, Bruce ZC, Koyama M, Handoko H, et al. Tigilanol tiglate is an oncolytic small molecule that induces immunogenic cell death and enhances the response of both target and non-injected tumors to immune checkpoint blockade. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. 2024;12:e006602. https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2022-006602.[6]
Maslovskaya, L.A., Savchenko, A.I., Gordon, V.A., Reddell, P.W., Pierce, C.J., Boyle, G.M., Parsons, P.G. and Williams, C.M. (2019), New Halimanes from the Australian Rainforest Plant Croton Insularis. Eur. J. Org. Chem., 2019: 1058–1060. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.201801548.[5]
Cancer treatment
In the 2025 World Science Festival, at Brisbane, Gordon's company QBiotics provided images of the microbiology from plants and the natural environment. QBiotics provided images of a seed found on the Atherton Tablelands, which is part of an anticancer treatment called 'tigilanol tiglate',[7] which can be used for the treatment of mast cell tumours and has received approval in the Australian market. The drug is also in phase II trials for head and neck cancer and soft tissue scarcoma.[8]
The QBiotics drug has received FDA approval in the United States for treatment of dogs with cancer.[3] The active ingredient in this treatment is sourced from a flower from the Fontainea group, in rainforests in northern Queensland,[9][10] and can provide 75% tumour resolution after one injection.[3]
Awards
2025 - Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.[11]
2004 - Queensland premiers award for service to biotechnology.[12]
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