Dr Susan Hawes, BSc, Ph.D

Honorary Lecturer, Department of Physiology, Monash University

Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation Laboratory

Research Interests

Human embryonic stem cells are a unique laboratory model to study early human development and to generate specialised human adult cells in culture. My interest is to study and track the formation of endodermal cells and their subsequent derivatives, hepatocytes. Use of both a genetically targeted human embryonic stem cell line to express fluorescent protein in association with endoderm/liver genes and antibodies to specific surface markers enable identification, the study and purification of human hepatic precursor cells. This will provide a way to study mechanisms of human endoderm differentiation and subsequently its specification into liver and pancreas cells.

Publications

Peh GSL, Lang RJ, Pera MF, Hawes SM (2009) CD133 expression by neural progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells and its use for their prospective isolation. Stem Cells Dev. 18(2): 269-82.

Bertram CM, Hawes SM, Egli S, Terry PA, Peh GSL, Kees UR, Dallas PB (2009) Effective adenovirus mediated gene transfer into neural stem cells derived from hESCs. Stem Cells Dev. Jul 13.

Shaw ML, Williams EJ, Hawes S, Choo AKH, Craig JM, Saffery R (2009) Investigation of histone variant distribution in hESCs by transfection of in vitro transcribed mRNA. Mol Reprod Dev. Jul 15.

Monk M, Hitchins M, Hawes S (2008) Differential expression of the embryo/cancer gene ECSA (DPPA2), the cancer/testis gene BORIS and the pluripotency structural gene OCT4, in human pre-implantation development. Mol Hum Reprod. 14(6): 347-355.

Laslett AL, Grimmond S, Gardiner B, Stamp LA, Lin A, Hawes SM, Wormald S, Nikolic-Paterson D, Haylock D, Pera MF (2007) Transcriptional analysis of early lineage commitment in human embryonic stem cells BMC Dev Biology 2007, 7:12 (1).

Hawes, SM and Pera MF. Identification and maintenance of cell lineage progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells. (2006) In: The Essentials of Stem Cells. 355-359. R.P. Lanza et al., editors.  Elsevier Press.  

*Hawes SM, *Stamp L, *Crosby HA, Strain AF and Pera MF (2005) A novel cell surface marker expressed on human embryonic hepatoblasts and a subpopulation of hepatic biliary cells. Stem Cells 23 (1): 103-12. (*equal first author)

Costa M, Dottori M, Ng E, Hawes SM, Sourris K, Jamshidi P, Pera MF, Elefanty AG, Stanley EG. (2005) The hESC line Envy expresses high levels of GFP in all differentiated progeny. Nature Methods 23;2(4):259-260.

Pera MF, Laslett A, Hawes SM, Tellis I, Koh K, Nguyen L (2005) Isolation and characterisation of human embryonic stem cells. In Embryonic stem cells: a practical approach.  MJ Evans, ed. Oxford University Press.

Hawes, SM and Pera. MF.  Identification and maintenance of cell lineage progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells. (2004) In: The Handbook of Stem Cells. 1: 501 RP Lanza et al., editors.  Elsevier Press.  

Pera MF, Filipcyk AA, Hawes SM, Laslett AL (2003). Isolation, characterization, and differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. Methods in Enzymology. Vol 36.

Hawes SM, Williams JW, Patel B, Latham KE. (2002) Trophectoderm-specific expression of the X-linked Bex1/Rex3 gene in preimplantation stage mouse embryos. Mol Reprod Dev 61 (3):281-287.

Hawes SM, Gie Chung Y, Latham KE. (2001) Genetic and epigenetic factors affecting blastomere fragmentation in two-cell stage mouse embryos. Biol Rep 65 (4): 1050-6.

Latham KE, Patel B, Bautista FD, Hawes SM. (2000) Effects of X chromosome number and parental origin on X-linked gene expression in preimplantation mouse embryos. Biol Reprod 63 (1):64-73.

Commentaries:

Hawes SM and Oakley J (2006) Ethics of using employees' eggs in cloning research. Nature 440, 992

Hawes SM, Sapienza C, Latham KE (2002) Ooplasm Donation In: Humans. Human Reprod 17(4): 850-2.