Professor Deborah White

Professor Deb White is the Director: Precision Cancer Medicine at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) in Adelaide, and Group Leader of the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia Genomics and Functional Genomics Research Group. Deb is a Professor in both the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the Faculty of the Sciences at the University of Adelaide. Deb's research focus is genomics and rationally targeted therapies in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL). She leads her group of scientists and bioinformaticians in the interpretation of genomic data and the curation of clinical relevant genomic alterations in leukaemia patients. She has presented more than 200 papers at scientific meetings and authored more than 150 scientific publications.

Deb established, led and federated the ALL Stream of The Australian Genomics Health Alliance (AGHA) now known as Australian Genomics, and was a member of the AGHA Executive. She is the ALL Scientific Co-Chair for the Zero Children's Cancer (ZCC: PRISM2) Genomics Initiative. Deb is a member of both the Australian and New Zealand Childrens Oncology Group (ANZCHOG)and the Australasian Leukaemia Lymphoma Group (ALLG) and is a recently elected member of the Board of Directors of both organisations. She is also a member of the Lab Sciences Committee for ALLG and the Leukaemia/Lymphoma Group of ANZCHOG. Locally Deb is an invited member of the Cancer Care – Precision Medicine Committee, Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health (CEIH) SA Health. Internationally, Deb is the only invited Australian representative to the The Variant Interpretation for Cancer Collaboration (VICC) Executive Group {An initiative of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH)}.

Deb is the current convener of the New Directions in Leukaemia Research Meeting (NDLR 2021-) and is a Section Editor for 3 international journals. She is currently a member of 4 International Grant and Fellowship Review boards and 6 National. She has received a number of awards: Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR) Leading Light (2014), the University of Adelaide James McWha medal (2016), the prestigious NHMRC Research Excellence Award (2019) and the Beat Cancer Women in Leadership Award (2020). From 2016-2018 (max. term) she was an invited member of the South Australian Premier's Scientific Advisory Board. She is a highly sought supervisor and Post-Doctoral mentor, having supervised/supervising 28 PhD students (20 complete), and 19 Honours.