The University of South Australia’s Mount Gambier campus will host its next public lecture on September 18.

The lecture, “Cancer: The treachery of the normal – how cancer takes advantage of normal cells to spread around the body” will be presented by UniSA’s Professor Michael Samuel, Research Professor in Matrix Biology, Centre for Cancer Biology, as he gives his insights into how research as caused a rethink of what cancer is, and how we can treat it better.

Prof Samuel heads the Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology, formed by an alliance between SA Pathology and the University of South Australia.

His research focuses on understanding the tumour microenvironment, the support structure that cancers build around themselves.

Current cancer therapies rely heavily on directly targeting aberrant tumour cell behaviour resulting from genetic mutations.

His research seeks to identify the mechanisms by which tumours remodel their microenvironments to promote tumour progression, with a view to uncovering new approaches to interfering with this process.

The event will start at 6pm for pre-lecture drinks with the presentation commencing at 6.30pm.

Registrations for this event are essential and can be made via Eventbrite, with the lecture to be livestreamed for those unable to attend in person.