[2] The effectiveness of this isolation method allowed her team to prove that PSCs’ close communication with cancerous cells contributes to the aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer, a major discovery that led the government of New South Wales to award her The Premier's Award for Woman of the Year in 2015.

[2] Apte was born in India to a family that encouraged its female members to seek education and to earn professional accomplishments.

Her great-aunt was a gynecologist, and her aunt and grandmother were respectively principal and founder and principle of girl's schools.

[6] Apte pursued this area of study at the University of New South Wales in Australia, from which she graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1998, after becoming the first to successfully isolate PSCs.

[8] In October 2019 Apte was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS).