Dr Catherine Carmichael is Head of the Leukaemia Modelling and Therapeutic Discovery Research group within the Centre for Cancer Research at Hudson Institute, and a Victorian Cancer Agency Mid-Career Research Fellow. As a molecular cancer biologist, Dr Carmichael’s research focuses on identifying key molecular mechanisms driving Acute Leukaemia development that may be therapeutically targetable.

Dr Carmichael obtained her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2008, where she studied genetic predispositions to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) with Professors Hamish Scott and Gordon Smyth at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI). Following her PhD studies, Catherine received a Leukaemia Foundation of Australia Fellowship to continue her postdoctoral work at WEHI with Professor Benjamin Kile, investigating the role of the ETS-related gene ERG in blood stem cell development and AML (2008-2013). In 2014, she joined the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University as a Research Fellow in Associate Professor Jody Haigh’s laboratory, where she identified a unique and novel role for the Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) regulator, SNAI1, in AML.

Dr Carmichael was appointed to Laboratory Head at the ACBD in 2019, where she continued her research into AML genetics and biological mechanisms before joining Centre for Cancer Research at Hudson Institute in 2022.

Selected publications

• Carmichael CL, Wang J, Nguyen T, Kolawole O, Benyoucef A, De Mazière C, Milne AR, Samuel S, Gillinder K, Hediyeh-Zadeh S, Vo ANQ, Huang Y, Knezevic K, McInnes WRL, Shields BJ, Mitchell H, Ritchie ME, Lammens T, Lintermans B, Van Vlierberghe P, Wong NC, Haigh K, Thoms JAI, Toulmin E, Curtis DJ, Oxley EP, Dickins RA, Beck D, Perkins A, McCormack MP, Davis MJ, Berx G, Zuber J, Pimanda JE, Kile BT, Goossens S, Haigh JJ (2020) The EMT modulator SNAI1 contributes to AML pathogenesis via its interaction with LSD1. Blood 136:957-973.

• Fagnan A, Bagger FO, Piqué-Borràs MR, Ignacimouttou C, Caulier A, Lopez CK, Robert E, Uzan B, Gelsi-Boyer V, Aid Z, Thirant C, Moll U, Tauchmann S, Kurtovic-Kozaric A, Maciejewski J, Dierks C, Spinelli O, Salmoiraghi S, Pabst T, Shimoda K, Deleuze V, Lapillonne H, Sweeney C, De Mas V, Leite B, Kadri Z, Malinge S, de Botton S, Micol JB, Kile B, Carmichael CL, Iacobucci I, Mullighan CG, Carroll M, Valent P, Bernard OA, Delabesse E, Vyas P, Birnbaum D, Anguita E, Garçon L, Soler E, Schwaller J, Mercher T (2020) Human erythroleukemia genetics and transcriptomes identify master transcription factors as functional disease drivers. Blood 136:698-714.

• Iacobucci I, Wen J, Meggendorfer M, Choi JK, Shi L, Pounds SB, Carmichael CL, Masih KE, Morris SM, Lindsley RC, Janke LJ, Alexander TB, Song G, Qu C, Li Y, Payne-Turner D, Tomizawa D, Kiyokawa N, Valentine M, Valentine V, Basso G, Locatelli F, Enemark EJ, Kham SKY, Yeoh AEJ, Ma X, Zhou X, Sioson E, Rusch M, Ries RE, Stieglitz E, Hunger SP, Wei AH, To LB, Lewis ID, D’Andrea RJ, Kile BT, Brown AL, Scott HS, Hahn CN, Marlton P, Pei D, Cheng C, Loh ML, Ebert BL, Meshinchi S, Haferlach T, Mullighan CG (2019) Genomic subtyping and therapeutic targeting of acute erythroleukemia. Nat Genet 51:694-704.

• Thirant C, Ignacimouttou C, Lopez CK, Diop M, Le Mouël L, Thiollier C, Siret A, Dessen P, Aid Z, Rivière J, Rameau P, Lefebvre C, Khaled M, Leverger G, Ballerini P, Petit A, Raslova H, Carmichael CL, Kile BT, Soler E, Crispino JD, Wichmann C, Pflumio F, Schwaller J, Vainchenker W, Lobry C, Droin N, Bernard OA, Malinge S, Mercher T (2017) ETO2-GLIS2 Hijacks Transcriptional Complexes to Drive Cellular Identity and Self-Renewal in Pediatric Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia. Cancer Cell 31:452-465.

• Tang JZ, Carmichael CL, Shi W, Metcalf D, Ng AP, Hyland CD, Jenkins NA, Copeland NG, Howell VM, Zhao ZJ, Smyth GK, Kile BT, Alexander WS (2013) Transposon mutagenesis reveals cooperation of ETS family transcription factors with signaling pathways in erythro-megakaryocytic leukemia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 110:6091-6096.

• Carmichael CL, Metcalf D, Henley KJ, Kruse EA, Di Rago L, Mifsud S, Alexander WS, Kile BT (2012) Hematopoietic overexpression of the transcription factor Erg induces lymphoid and erythro-megakaryocytic leukemia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109:15437-15442.

• Hahn CN, Chong CE*, Carmichael CL*, Wilkins EJ, Brautigan PJ, Li XC, Babic M, Lin M, Carmagnac A, Lee YK, Kok CH, Gagliardi L, Friend KL, Ekert PG, Butcher CM, Brown AL, Lewis ID, To LB, Timms AE, Storek J, Moore S, Altree M, Escher R, Bardy PG, Suthers GK, D’Andrea RJ, Horwitz MS, Scott HS (2011) Heritable GATA2 mutations associated with familial myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia. Nat Genet 43:1012-1017. *Equal contribution.

• Ng AP, Hyland CD, Metcalf D, Carmichael CL, Loughran SJ, Di Rago L, Kile BT, Alexander WS (2010) Trisomy of Erg is required for myeloproliferation in a mouse model of Down syndrome. Blood 115:3966-3969.

• Carmichael CL, Majewski IJ, Alexander WS, Metcalf D, Hilton DJ, Hewitt CA, Scott HS (2009) Hematopoietic defects in the Ts1Cje mouse model of Down syndrome. Blood 113:1929-1937.