Professional Background:

Loan completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in 2013 and then undertook postdoctoral training at Westmead Institute for Medical Research (2013-2017) and the University of Sydney (2017-2019). In November 2019, Loan joined ANSTO as a Biologist in the Biosciences Platform and in 2020, she was appointed Manager of Biology & Preclinical Imaging. In her current role, she leads and manages biologists, imaging scientists and infrastructure, to undertake biological research in radiopharmaceutical translation, radiation biology and radiotracer studies.

Research Interests:

Loan has over ten years of experience in developing cell- and non-cell-based therapies for heart diseases and investigating the mechanism of actions of treatments. Loan and her team’s current research focus is on the preclinical characterisation of radiopharmaceuticals that incorporate radioisotopes from the OPAL multi-purpose reactor (such as Tb-161, Lu-177, I-131). The effectiveness of radionuclide therapies is evaluated by using biological assays, in-vitro/in-vivo disease models and nuclear imaging technologies. Loan also has a research interest in the radiobiology of molecular radionuclide therapy. A particular goal is to understand the mechanisms by which a- and b-emitting radioisotopes modulate the tumour microenvironment and associated biomarkers, in order to optimise existing and new radionuclide therapy strategies.