Rate My Professor Karen MacKenzie

Associate Professor Karen MacKenzie is a Conjoint Associate Professor in the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Biomedical Science from the University of Technology Sydney and a PhD from UNSW Sydney's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, focusing on oncogenic drivers in leukaemia. Her postdoctoral training took place in the Laboratory of Developmental Hematopoiesis at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA, investigating telomerase's role in normal and neoplastic haematopoiesis, cell replicative lifespan, and malignant transformation. Recruited to Children's Cancer Institute, she led an independent research group funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, NSW Cancer Council, Cancer Institute NSW, and other agencies, advancing studies on cancer cell immortality, telomerase, haematopoiesis, and translational research into therapeutic targets, pre-clinical testing, and personalised medicine.

Currently serving as Senior Research Fellow and Project Manager in the Cancer Research Unit at Children's Medical Research Institute, Westmead, MacKenzie applies expertise in basic, pre-clinical, and translational research to telomere maintenance mechanisms and cancer cell vulnerabilities. Key projects include pan-cancer studies of telomere biology states, proteomic and transcriptomic analyses with pre-clinical drug screens for epithelial inflammatory myofibroblastic sarcoma, proteomic biomarkers for myeloma and leukaemia, and novel pathways in bone marrow failure for dyskeratosis congenita. She has mentored nine PhD students and twelve Honours students to completion, chaired student seminars, examined theses, participated in review panels, and delivered guest lectures on cancer molecular biology at UNSW Sydney. Her contributions extend to grant reviews, gene regulatory committees, manuscript peer review, conference and seminar organisation, and community engagement.