Prince Henry’s Institute

 

Kaye Stenvers

Appointments

• Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Developmental Biology and Anatomy, Monash University

 

Profile

Kaye originally trained in the USA in the areas of neurobiology and neuroendocrinology before migrating to Australia in 1996. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne, developing and characterising mutant betaglycan cell lines in terms of dysregulated cellular growth during embryonic development and tumorigenesis. She joined PHI in 2005.

 

Research Interests

Kaye's research team focuses on the roles of betaglycan and its ligands in the developing and adult urogenital system. She has a particular interest in how defects in foetal development impact upon health in adulthood.

 

Expertise

Developmental biology and anatomy; molecular and cellular biology; TGF-β superfamily receptors and signalling; tumorigenesis

 

Current Research

• Mechanisms of ovarian cancer metastasis

• Mechanisms of foetal urogenital system development

Recent Achievements

• 2005 - Awarded an NHMRC project grant to study the roles of betaglycan in tumorigenesis (cancer)

Service to the Scientific Community

• Member, Ludwig Institute Institutional Biosafety Committee

• 2007/8 - Coordinator, GRS1002, Education Program for Reproductive Biology (EPRB), Monash University

• 2008 - Organiser, TGFb Workshop, MIMR-PHI, Melbourne 

 

Selected Publications

Escalona RM, Stenvers KL, Farnworth PG, Findlay JK, and Ooi GT (2009) Reducing Betaglycan Expression by RNA interference (RNAi) Attenuates Inhibin Bio-Activity in LβT2 Gonadotropes (2009) Mol Cell Endocrinol.2009 Aug 13;307(1-2):149-56. Epub 2009 Apr 8 PubMed Link

Bilandzic M, Chu S, Farnworth P, Harrison CA, Nicholls P, Wang Y, Escalona RM, Fuller PJ, Findlay JK, and Stenvers KL (2009) Loss of betaglycan contributes to the malignant properties of human granulosa tumor cells. Mol Endocrinol. 23(4): 539-548.

Sarraj MA, Chua HK, Umbers A, Loveland KL, Findlay JK, and Stenvers KL. (2007) Differential expression of TGFBR3 (betaglycan) in mouse ovary and testis during gonadogenesis. Growth Factors. 25(5):334-45. 

Stenvers, KL, Tursky, ML, Harder, KW, Kountouri, N, Amatayakul-Chantler, S, Grail, D, Small, C, Weinberg, RA, Sizeland, A and Zhu, HJ (2003) Defective heart and liver development and reduced TGFbeta2 sensitivity in transforming growth factor-beta type III receptor-deficient embryos. Mol. Cell. Biol. 23(12): 4371-85.

Stacker, SS, Stenvers, KL, Caesar, C, Vitali, A, Roufail, S, Simpson, RJ, Moritz, R, Domagala, T, Nice, E, Alitalo, K, and Achen, MG (1999) Biosynthesis of vascular endothelial growth factor-D involves proteolytic processing which generates non-covalent homodimers.  J. Biol. Chem. 274(45): 32127-32136.