Dr Lev Kats is head of the Targeted Therapeutics Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He completed his PhD at Monash University and postdoctoral training at Beth Israel Deaconess Centre/Harvard Medical School. Dr Kats has made major contributions in the areas of targeted therapies, epigenetics and hematological malignancies including through discovery of important functions of cancer promoting genes and the characterization of the molecular mechanisms of anti-leukemic drugs. His laboratory uses model systems, functional and molecular genomics approaches to develop and test new therapeutic strategies for aggressive blood cancers.