Professor Nikola Bowden is the Vanessa McGuigan Memorial HMRI Fellow in Ovarian Cancer and is a full-time Senior Translational Cancer Researcher. Professor Bowden currently leads the Australian Program for Drug Repurposing for Treatment Resistant Ovarian Cancer (MRFF Emerging Priorities for Consumer Driven Research grant $2.8M, 2020-2026), the NSW Regional Cancer Research Network (Cancer Institute NSW Translational Cancer Research Capacity Building Grant $5.6M, 2021-2026) and current Investigator-Initiated Clinical Trials with support from Bristol Myers Squibb ($880,000 plus ~$3.5M drug supply).

Professor Bowden has extensive expertise in molecular biology, genomics, pharmacology, cell biology and translation of pre-clinical data into early phase clinical trials. She has national and international collaborations in the field of translational cancer research and leads a large multi-disciplinary team investigating drug repurposing and DNA repair in melanoma and ovarian cancer. The team consists of Scientists, Medical and Surgical Oncologists and Pathologists from regional and metropolitan sites in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.