Introducing Dr. Emmy Dolman from the Children’s Cancer Institute, one of our 2025–2026 grant recipients.
Dr. Dolman is a Senior Scientist in the Zero Childhood Cancer (ZERO) Program. She also holds a Conjoint Senior Lecturer position in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney.
Dr. Dolman’s research focuses on a protein called Aurora Kinase A (AURKA), which both stabilises MYCN and helps neuroblastoma to evade detection by the immune system.
By using a new type of therapy called PROTACs (PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras), Dr. Dolman and her team are working to degrade AURKA entirely, thereby disrupting the protein’s role in stabilising MYCN.
This research has the potential to make neuroblastoma more “visible” to the immune system and therefore more sensitive to immunotherapy. If successful, this project could lead to a groundbreaking combination treatment for high-risk neuroblastoma, and improve survival rates and quality of life for children facing this aggressive cancer.