Ian Vela

Dr Vela is an early career clinician scientist at the APCRC-Q and Consultant Urologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital with subspecialty training in Urologic Oncology.

Dr Vela has a molecular and cellular biology research background and was awarded his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2010, identifying a novel Wnt pathway associated gene (PITX2) in metastatic prostate cancer (publication submitted to Journal of Experimental Metastasis).

During his PhD, Dr Vela secured several grants/scholarships including a Smart State PhD scholarship (2007), Australasian Urologic Foundation scholarship (2006) and a University of Queensland Pathfinder grant (2009).

During this time, he collaborated with Team Leaders Prof Clements and Prof Nelson, being co-authors on publications, abstracts and international and national podium and poster presentations. Dr Vela was also an associate supervisor for two PhD students together with Profs Clements and Nelson.

Dr Vela has completed his training in Urology being awarded FRACS Urology in 2012 and was then selected for a two year Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) Fellowship at the prestigious Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he, together with Dr Charles Sawyers, Dr Brett Carver, Dr Yu Chen, and Dr Howard Scher (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center), and Dr Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands), was instrumental in developing cutting edge “organoid” culture technology.

This technology allows in vitro culture of metastatic prostate cancer tissue and circulating prostate cancer tumour cells (CTCs), and has lead to the development of multiple new metastatic prostate cancer cell lines (publication currently pending).

The fellowship also provided Dr Vela with extensive clinical training in advanced open, minimally invasive, endoscopic and robotic Urologic Oncology.

• Gao D, Vela I, Sboner A, Iaquinta PJ, Karthaus WR, Gopalan A, Dowling C, Wanjala JN, Undvall EA, Arora VK, Wongvipat J, Kossai M, Ramazanoglu S, Barboza LP, Di W, Cao Z, Zhang QF, Sirota I, Ran L, MacDonald TY, Beltran H, Mosquera JM, Touijer KA, Scardino PT, Laudone VP, Curtis KR, Rathkopf DE, Morris MJ, Danila DC, Slovin SF, Solomon SB, Eastham JA, Chi P, Carver B, Rubin MA, Scher HI,, Clevers H, Sawyers CL, Chen Y. Organoid cultures derived from patients with, advanced prostate cancer. Cell. 2014 Sep 25;159(1):176-87. doi:, 10.1016/j.cell.2014.08.016. Epub 2014 Sep 4. PubMed PMID: 25201530,
• Vela I, Morrissey C, Zhang X, Chen S, Corey E, Strutton GM, Nelson CC, Nicol, DL, Clements JA, Gardiner EM. PITX2 and non-canonical Wnt pathway interaction in , metastatic prostate cancer. Clin Exp Metastasis. 2014 Feb;31(2):199-211. doi:, 10.1007/s10585-013-9620-7. Epub 2013 Oct 26. PubMed PMID: 24162257
• Laudone VP, Vela I. Editorial comment. Urology. 2013 Feb;81(2):331-2;, discussion 332-3. doi: 10.1016/j.urology.2012.07.119. PubMed PMID: 23374794
• Vela I, Gregory L, Gardiner EM, Clements JA, Nicol DL. Bone and prostate, cancer cell interactions in metastatic prostate cancer. BJU Int. 2007, Apr;99(4):735-42. Epub 2006 Dec 13. Review. PubMed PMID: 17166237

• Prof Rik Thompson Theme Leader, Chronic Disease and Ageing, IHBI, QUT