Noralyn Manucat-Tan

Dr. Noralyn Mañucat-Tan obtained her PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of South Australia. During her PhD, she focused on elucidating the role of low-affinity neurotrophic receptor, p75 on the activity of proteins, kinases, and enzymes involved in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia such as amyloid beta and tau protein, respectively. Throughout her postdoctoral stay at Flinders University, she continued her efforts to characterize the amyloid beta protein that causes AD. Her research showed that amyloid beta peptide's potential to destroy cultured brain cells can be significantly reduced by low concentrations of hypochlorite, a potent oxidant that is known to degrade proteins during inflammation.

After participating in a consumer engagement event at Flinders University with Adult Brain Cancer South Australia (ABCSA), a support/charity group of cancer survivors and their families, she has been motivated to apply her scientific background in neurodegenerative research to brain cancer. She has also secured philanthropic financing through this consumer-led support organization for cancer survivors, which has enabled her to manage a pilot research that aims toward understanding the function of chaperone proteins in glioblastoma. In 2023, she joined the Paediatric Neuro-Oncology Team of Prof. Jordan Hansford in the Precision Cancer Medicine Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) where she is investigating the genomic and epigenomic predictors that underlie late effects in patients with paediatric brain cancer.