Jennifer A. Byrne

Jennifer Anne Byrne (born 1966) is an Australian cancer researcher and academic. She is a Professor of Molecular Oncology at University of Sydney, Australia. Byrne is notable for not only her cancer research, but the uncovering of academic fraud and junk science in cancer research. As a result of her and her colleague's investigations, 17 papers have been retracted, and others have been noted. Her PhD involved mapping the loss of the chromosome 11p15 loci in embryonal tumours.

Career Byrne is currently (2020) employed by NSW Health Pathology as the Director of Biobanking. She leads the NSW Health biobanking program, including the NSW Health Statewide Biobank (NSWHSB). Her other positions include Professor of Molecular Oncology, at the School of Medical Sciences, at the University of Sydney. In addition, Byrne was previously the Deputy Director of a group called the Kids Cancer Alliance, which is a Translational Cancer Research Center within the Cancer Institute of NSW.

Her experience on that gene made her realize that all of the papers, which were all from China, were describing the same nucleotide sequence yet some of the papers were describing this sequence wrongly. A nucleotide sequence is the specific order of letters which describes how a particular piece of DNA is composed. She noticed that the papers were describing wrong nucleotide sequences in the context of laboratory experiments performed with cancer cell lines. These wrong sequences implies that: (1) either the studies were not examining what they reported, or (2) the experiments had not been conducted as described. The implication is that each paper contains the seeds of bad research, that other papers could possibly build upon. As a result of her and her colleague Cyril Labbe's investigations, 17 papers have been retracted, and about five suspicious papers have been noted.

A colleague described the importance of her whistleblowing cancer work as "finding fraud and bad science". The LIM domain protein LMO4 interacts with the cofactor CtIP and the tumor suppressor BRCA1 and inhibits BRCA1 activity (2002) Sum, E., Peng, B, Yu, X., Chen, J, Byrne, J. et al. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 277:10 (7849-7856). Over-expression, amplification, and androgen regulation of TPD52 in prostate cancer (2004) Rubin, et al. Cancer research 64 (11), 3814–3822.

Awards, honours and recognition

The journal Nature rated Byrne as one of "Ten people who matter". Byrne was mentioned by Nature retraction watch. Byrne was an invited keynote speaker at the Sydney Cancer Conference, 2018.

Media

The Sydney Morning Herald described her as one of "diverse individuals who have left a mark on science". Nature described Byrne as an "Error Sleuth", and a researcher on a mission to expose flaws, and describes the tool she built to expose them. The tool used to detect flaws in cancer studies was described by the journal Nature. Byrne is involved in leadership in the Kid's Cancer Project fundraising for more effective cancer treatments.