Johanna Joyce


Johanna Joyce is a cancer researcher and professor at the University of Lausanne. Her research explores the mechanisms by which the tumour microenvironment regulates the development of cancer. She is president-elect of the European Association for Cancer Research, an elected fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research and an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation. She received the 2020 Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences Robert Bing Prize in Neuroscience and the 2023 Pezcoller-Marina Larcher Fogazzaro-EACR Women in Cancer Research Award.

Early life and education

Joyce was born in London and grew up close to Dublin. She credits her high school teachers for her inspiration to study science. She completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin. She pursued her doctoral research at University of Cambridge, where she investigated Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome. She subsequently went to the University of California, San Francisco for a postdoctoral fellowship with Douglas Hanahan. Joyce opened her independent research lab in 2005 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as an Assistant Member.

Research and career

Joyce was made an assistant professor at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 2005. At MSKCC she primarily investigated the functions of tumor-associated macrophages. She spent her time outside the lab teaching, including at City University and New York University. She was promoted to associate professor in 2010, and full professor in 2014. She moved to the University of Lausanne in 2016 and became a professor of oncology at Ludwig Cancer Research and the inaugural executive director of the Agora Cancer Research Centre.
Joyce's research considers the tumour microenvironment and the influence of non-cancerous immune and stromal cells. Joyce combines intravital microscopy with molecular MRI to look inside the brain. She has shown that cancer cells send regulatory signals to normal tissue cells which endows them with tumor-promoting functions, and that this can enhance tumour malignancy. She uses this insight to develop new therapies that are targeted toward the tumour microenvironment. For example, her research showed that targeting macrophages that promoted cancer with an inhibitor of the CSF-1 receptor did not deplete the macrophages, but changed their function, making them cancer fighters. She looked at how tumor-associated macrophages are impacted by radiotherapy, showing this it could drive therapy resistance and trigger glioma growth.
Joyce has studied the complex microenvironment of brain tumours, including functional studies of preclinical models. She has studied the role of extra-intestinal microbiota in brain metastasis, and how bacterial depletion impacts brain metastasis. Her research has revealed the phenotypes of many immune cells in the brain, and other organs, as well as endothelial and mural cells in tumour vasculature.

Awards and honours

Selected publications

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