Professor Deborah Marsh is a cancer cell and molecular biologist who, since late 2018 has led the Translational Oncology Group at UTS in the School of Life Sciences (SoLS), Faculty of Science. She is the Discipline Leader for Medical Science in SoLS.

She was awarded her PhD from the University of Sydney on the RET proto-oncogene and undertook postdoctoral studies at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute associated with Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA (1996-1999). Here, she was involved in implicating the tumour suppressor gene PTEN in a range of familial and sporadic cancers, with a number of seminal, highly cited papers including in Nature Genetics. Today, PTEN is well recognised as the second most frequently mutated gene in human malignancy.

After returning to Australia she established her research group at the Kolling Institute, a medical research institute associated with the University of Sydney (1999-2018). At the Kolling she worked on a number of familial cancer syndromes, including Hyperparathyroidism Jaw Tumour Syndrome, led bio-banking initiatives and established her research program on ovarian cancer. She has a broader research interest in all malignancies that affect women, including breast and endometrial cancer. Over a 15 year period at the Kolling Institute she held a number of competitive fellowships, including an RD Wright Fellowship (NHMRC), Cancer Institute Career Development Fellowships, an ARC Future Fellowship and a NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship. She has also attracted research funding from numerous sources including the NHMRC, ARC, Cancer Institute NSW and the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. She also serves on the executive of the Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank.

Professor Marsh has published over 150 papers, attracting more than 12,800 citations. She has an h-index of 54 (Scopus).

Student Completions

Professor Marsh has supervised 15 PhD students to graduation (9 as primary supervisor, 6 as co-supervisor). She is the current supervisor of 6 PhD students (4 as primary supervisor), and is co-supervisor of a Masters student. She has supervised 4 other Masters students to completion, as well as 25 honours students to date. Additionally, she supervises interns and visiting international research scholars. 

Awards
Professor Deborah Marsh was the inaugural recipient of the Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research Fellow in 2006. In 2005 she was awarded a Young Tall Poppy Award from the Australian Institute of Political Science and the Ministry for Health and Medical Research, recognising both the quality of her science and her communication of it to the public. In 2012 she was the recipient of a Vocational Excellence Award by the Rotary Club of Lane Cove.

Current Memberships
- SPHERE (The Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research & Enterprise (2018 -)
- Franklin Women (2016 - )
- Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG, 2015 -)
- Kathleen Cunningham Foundation Consortium for Research into Familial Breast Cancer (2003 - ).
- American Association for Cancer Research (AACR, 2000 -)

Editorial Boards
- Cancers (Section: Molecular Cancer Biology; 2019 - present)
- Endocrine-Related Cancer (Associate Editor, 2010 – present)

- Human Molecular Genetics (Topic Editor: Epigenomics, Chromatin Remodeling, Systems Pathology, Cancer Signaling; 2021 - 2024)
- The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (2005-8)
- Endocrinology (2005-8)
- Cancer Letters (2002-17)

Selected Media
The Science Spark that Saves Lives, The Sydney Morning Herald, March 7-8, 2020
(https://tomorrows-female-leaders-2020.smh.com.au/the-science-spark-that-saves-lives/)

Meet the People in Your Neighbourhood, Naremburn Matters, Sept. 2017 Vol. 14 No.3 (http://www.naremburnprogress.org.au/docs/naremburnMatters/201709%20Matters.pdf)