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Contact Details

Phone
64 3 479 5060
Email
heather.cunliffe@otago.ac.nz
Position
Associate Professor
Department
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine (Dunedin)
Qualifications
BSc(Hons) PhD
Research summary
Translational biomarker discovery in breast and ovarian cancer
Teaching
  • GENE 360 Special Topics in Genetics
  • GENE 411 Current Topics in Genetics (Course Convenor)
  • MELS 304 Principles of Pathology
  • MICN 201 Medicine Second Year
  • MICN 301 Medicine Third Year
  • PATH 201 Foundations in Human Pathology
  • PATH 301 Advanced Pathology
  • PATH 302 Cancer Biology (Course Convenor)
Memberships
  • Member, Health Research South Board
  • Member, Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG)
  • Active Member, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
  • Member, AACR-Women in Cancer Research
  • Member, New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Research

The focus of Associate Professor Cunliffe's research is the discovery and validation of biomarkers that will impact therapeutic decision-making and improve treatment outcomes for breast cancer and ovarian cancer patients. Her laboratory leverages genomic, biochemical, and cell-biologic approaches to define and target the pathobiology driving malignant progression in treatment-refractory tumour contexts.

Current areas of interest include:

  • Defining drivers of triple negative breast cancer metastasis
  • The molecular underpinnings of inflammatory breast cancer
  • Identifying tractable therapeutic targets in uncommon and rare ovarian tumours
  • Understanding drivers of chemoresistance in epithelial ovarian cancer

Associate Professor Cunliffe also has an interest and significant expertise in biospecimen science to empower genomics-enabled medicine.

Biography

Associate Professor Cunliffe completed her undergraduate training at Victoria University of Wellington and received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Otago. She then trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1999–2004 in the Cancer Genetics Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute, at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, MD, USA. In 2004, Associate Professor Cunliffe joined the research faculty at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a not-for-profit biomedical research institute in Phoenix Arizona, where she headed the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Research Unit for 10 years prior to returning to the University of Otago.

Additional details

Publications

Onuma, A., Davis, W., & Cunliffe, H. (2026, October). Investigating the role of fibroblast growth factor inducible 14 in HER2-positive breast cancer. Poster session presented at the Te Pūao Mātai Pukupuku New Zealand Society for Oncology 56th Annual Conference, Wellington, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Poster Presentation (not in published proceedings)

Lilly, M., Davis, W., & Cunliffe, H. (2026, October). Investigating receptor tyrosine kinase activity to identify potential therapeutic strategies in low-grade serous ovarian cancer. Poster session presented at the Te Pūao Mātai Pukupuku New Zealand Society for Oncology 56th Annual Conference, Wellington, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Poster Presentation (not in published proceedings)

Davis, W., Ludemann, J., Lilly, M., Cunliffe, H., on behalf of the International Consortium for Low-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer (ICLC). (2026, October). From molecular profiling to therapeutic discovery: An international consortium approach to low-grade serous ovarian cancer. Poster session presented at the Te Pūao Mātai Pukupuku New Zealand Society for Oncology 56th Annual Conference, Wellington, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Poster Presentation (not in published proceedings)

Grisham, R. N., Slomovitz, B., Podder, V., Sun, C., Andrews, N., Manning-Geist, B., … Cunliffe, H. E., … Gershenson, D. M. (2026). Low-grade serous ovarian cancer: 2026 expert consensus report [Invited review]. Gynecologic Oncology, 214, 144-163. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2026.10.011 Journal - Research Article

Chen, R. M., Ludgate, J. L., Weeks, R. J., Cunliffe, H. E., Dohan, A. G., & Morison, I. M. (2026). The myeloma risk variant of TNFRSF13B shows reduced NF-κB signaling activity in HEK293 cells. European Journal of Haematology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/ejh.70283 Journal - Research Article

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