Elizabeth Williams

Elizabeth Williams is an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She received her undergraduate with honours degree and Ph.D. from University of Melbourne, Australia.

Her research is focused on using precision medicine approaches in the management of bladder and prostate cancer, including the development of patient-derived tumoroids for personalised functional drug sensitivity testing. She is an expert in the development of novel cancer models from clinical material, as well as the use of clinical material in biomarker and fundamental research. She has made significant contributions to the understanding of the role of tumour cell plasticity and heterogeneity in the metastatic progression of urological cancers analysing the molecular and cellular basis of tumour progression and metastasis.

In 2017 she founded the Queensland Bladder Cancer Initiative with uro-oncologist Associate Professor Ian Vela to improve outcomes for people diagnosed with cancer. This is a collaborative, multifaceted program that is discovering novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets, delivering relevant clinical trials, building a comprehensive, well annotated Bladder Cancer Registry and Biorepository, and raising awareness of bladder cancer with the general community.