Dr Dustin Flanagan (Dusty) is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and leads the Cell Competition and Niche Signalling Laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Dusty obtained his PhD in Elizabeth Vincan’s lab at the University of Melbourne and after completing his PhD, Dusty joined Owen Sansom’s lab at the CRUK Beatson Institute in Glasgow. Here he leveraged his training as a stem cell biologist and amassed expertise in clinically relevant mouse models of colon, stomach and liver cancer to study the behaviour of cancer stem cell populations. During this time, he described the early molecular events of tumour initiation in the gut that allow mutant cells to outcompete surrounding cells and form tumours.

Dusty’s research interests have expanded to study and understand the functional contribution of stromal fibroblasts to tumour cells in the early phases of tumourigenesis, but also how stromal-niche signals facilitate tumour plasticity and resistance to therapy. At Monash, Dusty’s lab uses organoid and mouse models in combination with multiplex imaging and transcriptomics to address these questions with maximal precision and translational impact.