Dr Nicole Bryce

_______

Dr Nicole Bryce is an experienced cell and molecular biologist who has worked in a variety of research areas from basic molecular biology and cellular imaging to drug discovery and delivery. She completed her Bachelor of Science (Hons 1) at the University of Sydney in 1998. After working for two years as a research assistant in Professor Peter Gunning’s laboratory at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, she returned to being a student. She completed her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology in the Gunning lab at the University of Sydney in 2004 where she identified unique functions of tropomyosin isoforms. Dr Bryce then moved to the US where she held postdoc positions at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre where she was awarded an American Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Returning home to Australia in 2009, Dr Bryce worked with Professor Trevor Hambley at the University of Sydney to develop 3-dimensional cell models to study drug diffusion and hypoxia-targeted drug activation and used these cell models to help develop tumour targeted nanoparticles with Associate Prof Brian Hawkett. After a year with Associate Professor Guy Lyons at the University of Sydney studying epithelial to mesenchymal transition in head and neck cancer, she moved to UNSW Sydney in 2014 to lead a high content screening project in the laboratory of Professor Gunning and Professor Edna Hardeman seeking to find new compounds that target the actin cytoskeleton in cancer cells.

Dr Bryce joined the Institute in 2020 as a Senior Scientist in the Vascular Biology Laboratory and Conjoint Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney to study the development of atherosclerosis and fibromuscular dysplasia where she has been developing novel cell models and seeking to understand the role of the PHACTR1 protein in the development of these cardiovascular diseases.