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NCRN Virtual Seminar – Vanessa Hayes

07/10/25

 

Norwich Cancer Research Network Virtual Seminar

Title: “Global multi-omic approach to tackling prostate cancer health disparities”

Speaker: Vanessa Hayes, University of Sydney

Date: Monday 27th September 2025 9am

Web link: https://bit.ly/NCRNsem or Click here to join the meeting (on MS Teams)

For further information contact: d.brewer@uea.ac.uk

ALL WELCOME

Further details:

Global multi-omic approach to tackling prostate cancer health disparities

Prostate cancer (PCa) shows significant geo-ancestral disparity in burden, outcomes and lethality. While incidence rates are highest in western countries, including Australia, mortality rates are disproportionately elevated in global regions of economic transition, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conversely, Asian Nations have the lowest incidence and mortality rates, yet the disease presents aggressively. While genomics plays a significant role in global PCa health disparities, patient risk profiling and prostate tumour genome profiling data is scare for both African and Asian Nations, especially at the whole genome and multi-omic level. Additionally, PCa presents with extreme genomic heterogeneity, even within single ancestral groups, which further impact patient management and treatment. The Hayes lab through whole tumour genome interrogation, showed men of African ancestry to present with a unique inherited and acquired genomic landscape, which includes cancer drivers and therapeutic targets, to a novel PCa taxonomy and mutational signatures. Through our unique grass-roots approach, we are demonstrating how African inclusion is critical if we are to understand the etiology of lethal PCa, providing access to extreme genomic and extreme environmental diversity.

Professor Vanessa Hayes Bio

Professor Hayes is the Petre Chair for Prostate Cancer Research at the University of Sydney, where she heads the Ancestry and Health Genomics Laboratory located within the Charles Perkins Centre. She also holds Honorary Professorships at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and at the University of Manchester and East Anglia in the United Kingdom. She is Director for the US DoD-funded HEROIC Prostate Cancer Precision Health (PCaPH) Africa1K Consortium and as Founder and Scientific Director for the Southern African Prostate Cancer Study (SAPCS), this study has now been mirrored by partner institutions across Africa and the African diaspora.

Known for her contribution in generating the first global African Human and prostate tumour genomes, the Hayes Lab uses cutting-edge genomic technologies and big data analytics to understand why ancestry and/or geography is a significant determinant for lethal prostate cancer, with a focus on men of African ancestry and/or from Africa. Establishing globally unique bioresources, the team’s approach is holistic aimed at unraveling both genetic (inherited and acquired) and non-genetic (including lifestyle and environmental) forces at play. The overall objective – to establish a roadmap for prostate cancer precision medicine that is globally relevant.